DIVIDED LIVES

The Untold Stories ofJewish-Christian Women

in Nazi Germany

CYNTHIA CRANE

St. Martin’s PressNew York

DIVIDED LIVES

Copyright © 2000 by Cynthia Crane. All rights reserved. Printed in theUnited States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproducedin any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case ofbrief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information,address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

ISBN 0-312-21953-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Datais available from the Library of Congress.

Design by Acme Art, Inc.

First edition: December 200010 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my parents, Carl K. and Joan Cummins Crane

“I think I can. I thought I could.”

There is tremendous elasticity of autobiographical forms, a

fact that we discover in any perusal of bookstores, and

libraries. There seems an endless variety to personal writings,

autobiographical novels, personal essays, journals, diaries,

collections of letters, travel literature, oral histories, ethnog-

raphies, testimonials, andprisonnarratives.Autobiographical

subjects are everywhere. And the cacophony of autobio-

graphical voices invigorates autobiographical narrative. In

fact, it is a wonderful time of autobiographical experimenta-

tion as well as autobiographical traditionalism. Fractures in

the old forms generate new modes of self-narratives.

—Sidonie Smith, Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body

All autobiographicmemory is true. It is up to the interpreter

to discover in which sense, where, for which purpose.

—Luisa Passerini, Interpreting Women’s Lives

Even in our world of printed facts and impersonal mass

media, we consciously and unconsciously absorb knowledge

of the world and how it works through exchanges of life

stories.We constantly test reality against such stories, assert-

ing and modifying our own perceptions in light of them.

—Personal Narratives Group, Interpreting Women’s Lives

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

I. THE SPIRIT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

II. THE LAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

III. STORIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

1. INGEBORG HECHT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

“The Germans and the Nazis werenot synonyms for me”

2. INGRID WECKER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

“I was a wanderer between the waves,belonging to no one”

3. RUTH YOST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

“I was born completely poisoned”

4. RUTH WILMSCHEN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

“In the Nazi years, I acquired an elephant skinand could handle any kind of treatment”

5. URSULA RANDT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

“One had, at the time, enough possibilities to die”

6. ILSE B. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

“I was treated differently because I looked Aryan.That helped me a great deal”

7. GRETEL LORENZEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

“God took my life into his hands and I'mforever grateful for that”

8. SIGRID LORENZEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

“The Hitler ideology was stronger than my life”

9. MARGOT WETZEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

“There was no part of life where youweren’t asked whether or not

you were Jewish”

10. URSULA BOSSELMANN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

“I stood at eighteen looking into nothingness”

NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

WORKS CONSULTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to begin with a note that a friend sent to me in Germany thatmotivated me whenever I felt that I was tilling in questionable soil orplanting seeds that might not bear fruit: “I think you must also realize(using a botanical analogy) that you plant seeds and wait. Often onethinks the seeds are no good because they don’t do anything. Are theysterile? Is the soil tainted? Then suddenly the cotyledons appear, almostovernight the seeds planted weeks before show life. After weeks of doubtand worry the real work and responsibility begins. It is often overwhelm-ing. I know you are up to it.” And so it happened. With such a greatarmy of people behind me, I had every reason to march forward. Afternearly ten years of planning and working on this project there arenumerous people to thank.

My thank yous start six years back in Germany. I'd like to give specialthanks to the following people: All of the womenwho allowedme to comeinto their homes to record their stories. My two dear Hamburg friends,K. Ernst Dohnke and AlmuthDittmar-Kolb, for your unending faith andimmeasurable assistance—schönen Dank! Your depth of knowledge ofGerman history, in particular, Hamburg’s history, strengthened everyblock in the structure. Claudia Kirschner for providing a safe haven for mewhen I was suffering from culture shock. My committed helpers andfriends in Germany: Candace Barlow, Heather Duke, Inga Nevermann,Kitty Otto, Katharina Kramer, Heike Prahl, and my “savior landlords,”Karen and Horst Moeller. Dr. Norbert Finzsch for such a warm wel-come—dinner at your home, awork-out at your health club, and guidancethrough the mazes at the University of Hamburg. The late Dr. GünterMoltmann, who started the ball rolling that made this book possible.Priv.Doz. Dr. Büttner and Frau Baumbach at the Research Center for the

viii DIVIDED LIVES

Study of National Socialism; Monika Richarz; and Herr Peter Jaffé,Member, Board of Directors, Vorstandsmitglied der Jüdischen Gemeindein Hamburg, who gave me a contact to Herr Gerhard Wundermacher,Notgemeinschaft der durch die Nürnberger Gesetze Betroffenen, who ledme to Ruth Yost and then Ruth Wilmschen. Stuten and Fridolin Ertz,friend’s of my family when they lived in Germany, who led me to theengaging Dr. Ursula Levy Becker in Aachen; Frau Goldman at theChristian-Jewish Society; Erika Hirsch at the Gedenk-und BildungsstätteIsraelitische Töchterschule, who hooked me up with Pastor Ralf Meister-Karanikas, and Ursel Hochmuth. Karanikas led me to the engaging HansHermann Mack, who led me to Ingeborg Hecht in Freiburg, and Dr.Ursula Randt; Frau Carola Meinhardt at the Senatskanzlei, who providedme with information about people who had emigrated and been in touchwith her office and who played a part when my father decided to returnto Hamburg for a visit.

Thank you to the Eppendorfer Wochenblatt, a weekly paper that ranan announcement fromwhich I received remarkable feedback, includinga contact to Ilse B., and from which I found a great talent and friend,Gisela Gross Seifert, a professional photographer who graciously volun-teered to take black and white photographs of the women. Thank youto theHamburger Abendblatt andRenate Schneider, editor of the columnVon Mensch zu Mensch. Your announcement generated letters frompeople who had known my grandparents on both sides—Bahlsen andCohn—to Mischlinge who contacted me, including Margot Wetzel,Ingrid Wecker, and Sigrid and Gretel Lorenzen. Also the newspaperDieAllgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung, which led Ursula Bosselmann to me.

My doctoral committee: Jim Wilson, Don Bogen, and Gila SafranNaveh. You were all superb, keen readers. Mark Schardine, DaniellaBartha, Ina Remus, Christoph Haertel, and Alison Owings—your helpwas greatly appreciated. All of the groups that invited me to speak andthe following organizations and institutes: United States and GermanFulbright Commission, University Research Council, University ofCincinnati, PEO, and the Hamburg State Archives.

Dr. John Dolibois for your letters, emails, and phone calls—manyyears ago you were enthusiastic but realistic about applying for the

Acknowledgments ix

Fulbright. I treasure our continuing friendship. Jim Tent, Professor ofHistory and University Scholar at Alabama. What can I say? You were agodsend. Claudia Koonz, with whom I communicated before any of thismaterial was started. Thank you for all the advice. Marion Kaplan, thankyou for your help with contacts and your continued interest. AnnMilan,for your knowledge and bibliography. Thanks to Katinka Matson atBrockman, Inc., who, years ago, took the time to give me invaluablefeedback on my nascent manuscript.

Monica Davis, translator and friend, to whom I am indebted. Yourinfectious optimism and meticulousness added to our teamwork. Also athank you to others who assisted with translation of difficult passages:Dr. Jerry Glenn, from the University of Cincinnati, and Gerhard Christ.All those who supportedme at RaymondWalters College, including PeteBender in Media Services for making slides and reproducing photos andDebbie Gage for your help with specific passages. My 1999 Topics IIIclass, a group of engaging and thoughtful students who taught me aboutmy own work: Renee Angel, Tara Boehner, Krissy Carovillano, KimConn, Patrice Flowers, Michelle Harrison, Jennifer Hoffman, PatJackson, Kim Janson, Tim Kroeger, Stacy Major, Julie Montgomery,Cari Moreland, Eric Neefus, Brian Thacker, Kristy Thompson, AllysonVonnida, Sharon Ward, Stephanie Wuest, Cara Young. Also thanks toother students, including Lisa Simpson and Mary Katherine Ramsey,who inquired about my progress.

Dr. Patricia Cramer, my mentor in graduate school at XavierUniversity, who many years ago gave me the courage, support, and“tough love” that I needed to pursue my path. Lise Williams, my “soulfriend,” Andreas Drath, and Dr. John Cussen, who provided me with somuch love and inspiration over the years, it would take a book to list allyour contributions. The late Kay Peters, librarian and great friend, whosepresence is all around me, and who I miss every day. This book was asmuch her dream as it is mine. Al Gavin, ace pilot and pal. Thanks forlistening, for flying adventures, for your own stories of family and friends,for intriguing shopping and dining ventures, and your knowledge ofWorldWar IImilitary operations. Youmakeme feel like amillion bucks.As does Craig Seaver. Thanks for your pep talks, help with the schedule,

x DIVIDED LIVES

marketing strategies, blading and biking, the sports club, and all the e-mail, especially from the hypotheticalNewYork fan. Jennifer Callewaert,my childhood best friend, and Jim Soupene. We are irrevocably a partof each other’s lives. I hope you know how much our ties mean to me.Gary Wollenweber. Thank you. For the walks and talks, the great food,the jaunts, shaving Isak, working miracles in design, for having thepatience of a saint and a superb heart. Susan Macintyre, math teacherextraordinaire and dearest friend. Teachers like you are far and fewbetween. Thanks for being at my side through everything, and for readingand editing ad nauseum. Your cartoon series is nonpareil and kept melaughing. I will never forget that rainstorm on Main. I know a place isreserved for you in heaven. Special thanks to Barb Schumacher for yourconstant encouragement, friendship, and creating the index. Specialembraces for Scott Goebel, a sensitive and caring confidant. You saw me“keep going” through the degrees, and for years, your shoulder and trucknever failed me. Other people who played a major role: Dan Miller, hairdesigner par excellence; Monte Davis, master web designer and greatmorale booster; Bill Pofahl, heart-felt reader and hilarious friend; JoeRaphael, talented photographer; RL, astute reader of my stories, and“wcyn” founder—you know the rest of the spiel; Dr. Kathy Grant, SteveDeiters, GriffMurphey, Barb Brady, KristinDietsche, SteveHirschberg,and Fred Anderson. Thanks to Scott Selley and Actionfront.com, wizardsof technology for coming to my rescue and recovering important data.

Thanks to my top-notch editor, KarenWolny, who had faith in thisbook from its inception. How lucky I am to have worked with you.Thank you to Ella Pearce for trouble-shooting and Alan Bradshaw forkeeping everything on schedule, and to all the other professional hardworkers at St. Martin’s who assisted me.

While in Germany, I was told homesickness is a feeling of thankful-ness that you have so many people left behind that you love. That wouldbemy family! Thank you tomy cherished, brilliant brothers, George andAndrew (Bud) Crane, who, each in your own way, urged me on. Thanksto George who plays devil’s advocate to razz me. Thanks to Bud formarking up the early preface and introduction, providing feedback onthe stories, for your sharp wit and laughter, for liftingme up, and keeping

Acknowledgments xi

me on my toes. And to my parents, Joan and Carl, who have always,unfailingly, cheerleaded at the sidelines. Thank you for instilling in us alove for books and inquiry and for dropping me off, at a very young age,to live at the library. With your constant example of love, commitment,and strong values, our family is tightly knit. Also thanks to thosehometown friends of my parents who still watch over me. Thanks toUncle Johann for important dates and family history that made thedigging process less arduous.

Thank you to my extended family. We are blessed to have such anenduring connection. Those in my family who are no longer with us: Mygrandfather George Clyne Cummins (Oley), a superb historian andlawyer, fromwhommy brothers and I certainly inherited a love of history.My grandfather Dr. Felix Gustav Cohn, his brothers, and sister, and hisfather, Senator Carl Cohn, whose lives were the basis for this book.

This book raises a glass of fine champagne in toast to the spirit ofwomen—the lives they follow, pursue, or endure and the varied tasksthey must manage and balance. The women I know are incrediblemagicians and jugglers. I am indebted to my paternal grandmother,Herta Bahlsen Cohn, whose courage, tenacity, and independent spiritheld together her family, got them out of Nazi Germany, and sustainedthem in America. Without your indomitable spirit, your memoir, andyour stories of Nazi Germany, none of this work would have started ormeant half as much. And my maternal grandmother, the late AlmaBender Cummins, an angel and great beauty who held us all lovingly inthe palm of her hand, kept us in line, and gave generously of her timeand energy. Both grandmothers grew up with strong matrilineal linesthat continue through the generations. To thewomenwho under fascismhad yet another noose around their necks, to those whose spirit shatteredunder thememories and was never healed. To women of all races, classes,and ethnicities who are or have been “outsiders,” unwittingly or unwill-ingly forced into outsider status, enduring traumas that no one shouldhave to endure, this book is also for you.

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PART I

THE SPIRIT

History took hold of meand never let me go thereafter.

—Simone de Beauvoir

�

Growing up, I myself do not remember ever feeling likeanything but an “outsider.” Something deep in my stomachtold me, somewhere stretched across the ocean was a piece ofmyself. I do not remember the exact moment that my family’shistory began to unravel. People always asked me if I wasrelated to this Crane or that one, and I would smile and sayNo. As I grew older, it became more irritating, “No, none ofmy relatives live near here,” I would all but shout to theinquisitor. I wondered where all of my relatives were. I alwaysknew my name was different from my grandmother’s, but I

2 DIVIDED LIVES

did not know why. Something was amiss, but when Iattempted to ask my father, his face paled and I retreated. Mypaternal descendants, I discerned, were twilight zone people.I always felt as if I belonged in another place, that there was adormant world embedded in me via my grandparents andfather. Shreds of stories leaked out in whispers when I wasyoung, until my grandmother started to toss out one story ata time, until she broke down and confessed to me that she hadwritten a book. It tookme some time to persuade her to retrievethe manuscript out of her basement, where it had been hiddenaway. Through her stories, I allowed my grandmother toreweave my life, to put back in the original stitches. But notuntil I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Hamburg,Germany, and was sitting in the Hamburg State Archives(after having waited weeks for my file requests to be fulfilled,and now having all eyes upon me as I checked out the folders)looking through my family’s immigration files, housing inanelettersmygrandmother had towrite to theGestapo just to keepher husband’s stethoscope, lists of all the beautiful familyheirlooms the Nazis would “pick up,” as well as papersregarding the Aryanization1 of the company Arndt and Cohn,owned by my great-grandfather and great-uncle, did I realizethe enormity of what had been missing from my identity, ahistory that, once seemingly daunting, vivified me the longerI stayed in Germany.

� � �

My father and his family, like thewomen in this book, survivedthe Third Reich. They are here to talk about it, but millions ofothers are not. My own family’s experiences parallel many ofthe women’s stories recounted here, and because of my rela-tives’ persecution, the women felt a kinship to me and I to

The Spirit 3

them. The subject matter is not only tragic but also reaffirmingof the human spirit and its ability to persevere. I haveattempted to illuminate for all readers universal stories ofhuman strength and weakness, of hope and survival, thattranscend time, race, religion, class, and gender. This is not thestory of my family, but it begins with them.

My paternal family, the Cohns, has been traced to 1755in Germany. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, theyresided in Neustrelitz, now a part of the defunct GermanDemocratic Republic (DDR), and then gravitated to Ham-burg in northern Germany.2 My grandfather Felix Cohn wasa private practitioner and also a prison doctor in Hamburgwhen Hitler came to power. His medical license was revokedunder Hitler’s laws in 1938.3 As a designated Jew, he couldno longer practicemedicine.Hewas supposedly fired from theGrosshamburger Gefängnis (prison), where he served asprison doctor from 1922 to 1934; there he had entered on theprison records the factual reasons for injuries to some of theprisoners, namely that they were beaten. My grandfatherendangered his life by helping prisoners to escape who hadwrongfully been imprisoned. He also helped “enemies of thestate”—Socialists and Jews—by misdiagnosing them orclaiming they needed certain medicines and sending them tohospitals from which they could then flee. He also droveostensibly ill people to the edge of theBaltic near Travemünde,where they fled in boats. Informants tipped offmy grandfatherthat he was on a Gestapo list to be rounded up and mostcertainly tortured.

He escaped Nazi Germany to the United States in 1938before Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,”4 thanks to anaffidavit from his younger brother, Rudolph, who lived in theUnited States. My grandfather was not Jewish but wasconsidered a Jew because of his Jewish “blood”: his grand-parents had been tied socially to Jewish culture but were notobservant, religious Jews. My grandmother, Herta Bahlsen

4 DIVIDED LIVES

Cohn, was considered “Aryan,” or pure German. She waspressured, unsuccessfully, by the Gestapo to divorce mygrandfather—“Why would a beautiful young woman like youstay married to a Jew?” Before he left Germany, my grandfa-ther insisted that his children be baptized immediately toprotect them. They had been attending Sunday School at aLutheran church. Nevertheless, because of my grandfather’s“blood-line,” my father and his siblings were consideredMischlinge,Hitler’s derogatory term denoting “half-breeds,” or“hybrids,” those that were “outsiders,” not fully German or“Aryan” or even human. Hitler referred to the racially“impure” as “monstrosities halfway between man and ape.”5

After Hitler’s rise to power, their lives became a struggle forsurvival, hanging precariously between life and uncertaindeath. My book is about Mischlinge and their divided lives.

Like many of theMischlinge and their families, my grand-father did not want to leave Germany. He loved his countryand was a nationalistic German. He had served in WorldWar I as a doctor in the trenches in France, ran an evacuationhospital, and was rewarded for his bravery with a first andsecond IronCross.He could not fathom that his countrywouldrenounce him. He did not think of himself as a Jew. Hethought of himself as a German, the son of a famous Hamburgfinance senator, Carl Cohn. He could not turn his back on hishistory very easily. Had my grandmother not been so strong-willed, he might never have made it out of Germany. She hadbeen talking about leaving for years. As early as 1922, at agenineteen, she could see the growing movement of the NationalSocialists, theNazi party.My grandfather hadmerely silencedher. I think, deep down, that he knew she was right. At thetime he left, he was fifty years old and my grandmother thirty-five, quite a generation gap when one is thinking of startingover one’s life in a foreign land. My grandmother mentionedthat he wrote her letters from the United States in the yearafter he left Germany. She still has these letters. My grandfa-

The Spirit 5

ther later told her she did not need to keep them because theywere all lies. He had said everything in the United States wasfine to try to keep her spirits up, when, in reality, nothing hadbeen fine with him. Nor was life fine for her. My grandmotherclaims that once he got to the United States he forgot abouther fighting for all of them in Germany. He thought she andthe children could remain yet another year. In her view, he hadno idea how hopeless life was in Germany and how difficult ithad become to get out.

Before my grandmother left Germany, she attempted tohelp my grandfather’s brothers, Carl August and WernerCohn, who had been rounded up on Kristallnacht. Becauseshe was “Aryan,” blonde with blue eyes, she could maneuverthrough Germany more readily. Carl August was not sent toa camp; instead he was cast into the prison in Fuhlsbüttel.6

Carl August was more protected; perhaps he was important tothe Nazis because he was a partner of Arndt and Cohn, animport/export business that accorded him many connections,and the Nazis could not afford to lose German business. Mygrandmother became aware that he had plenty of help and didnot need hers. They had a cordial, but not close relationship,and Carl’s wife, who was “Aryan” and quite alert to thepolitical situation, was in a position to exercise some influencethrough friends and family. Carl did not remain in prison longafterKristallnacht.On the other hand,Werner,who had nevereven been in military service, was taken to either Osnabruckor Marinberg, camps north of Berlin. Utterly traumatized byhis camp experience, he refused to talk or write about it beforehe died a few years ago in South Africa.

Indicative of the pervasive secrecy of these times, mygrandmother found out about the men’s capture in a round-about way. The nephew of a neighbor of my great-grand-mother told his aunt, who told my grandmother, that Wernerwas on a truck to Berlin. To help him, my grandmother wentto the Fuhlsbüttel prison director’s home in the middle of the

6 DIVIDED LIVES

night. The director lived in a five-story apartment building inEppendorf, a refined suburb in Hamburg. My grandmotherremembers climbing all of the stairs in the dark, concentratingon appearing serious. The director had recently come fromsouthwest Africa, where my grandmother’s sister lived withone of the first settler’s families who were very well known.During the meeting with the director, my grandmother clev-erly dropped their names, and he agreed to tell her the officialprocedure for getting men out of the camps. He could havetold her nothing. Within his limits, he tried to be helpful. Thewiveswere supposed to appeal for the release of themen. Theyneeded to gather all of the men’s official papers, and then themen had to leave the country immediately. Mausi, Werner’swife, did not believe any of this; nor did others who could notfathom the Nazis’ actions. She said if her husband, a lawyer,could not get himself out, she did not know who could. Likesome of thewomenwhose husbands had been rounded up, shewas in denial. Because she did not believe my grandmother,Mausi went to an elderly Jewish lawyer, who confirmed thetruth of what my grandmother had said.Mausi went to Berlin,where she and other friends were hidden in a house. Througha tedious, bureaucratic process, my grandmother managed toget Werner released. When he returned, his clothes neededdisinfecting and his head had been shaved.Werner mentionedthat the men had been forced to march out of the camp andmany had collapsed. Both Werner and Carl emigrated atdifferent times and settled in South Africa. Werner told mygrandmother that if she ever needed help getting herself andthe children out of the country, he would help. And he, amongothers, did.

On January 30, 1939, more than a year after my grand-father left, my grandmother andmy father, Carl, ten years old,along with his siblings, left Hamburg for the United States onthe SS Washington, part of the United States Line and thelargest steamer ever built in America. They were only allowed

The Spirit 7

to leave with DM 10 per person, which was equivalent to 4.59in U.S. dollars. After stopping in Le Havre and South Hamp-ton, the ship arrived in New York on February 9, 1939. Myfather recalled hellish seas, but the children found a way tohave fun, sliding by the force of the seas from corner to corneron the ship deck. My grandmother equated America withguaranteed, irreversible freedom. When she arrived in theUnited States, she ran down the streets in New York, neverglancing behind her because no one’s eyes were upon heranymore. The youngest children, Johann andAnna, livedwithmy grandmother at a house in upstate New York where sheworked as a maid. Immediately after disembarking the boat inNew York, my father and his other sister left for a farm inDoylstown, Pennsylvania, owned bymy grandmother’s friendfrom Hamburg, Berta Schroeder. They remained there untilmy grandfather passed hismedical exams andmoved everyoneto Hamilton, Ohio, to start again in medicine.

Over the years, the German government sent my grand-father information about collecting monies owed him. Likemost of the Mischlinge, he had a legitimate claim to socialsecurity (for his prison work) and for Wiedergutmachung (“tomake good again”), reparations given to German-Jewishvictims of the Third Reich. But my grandfather never wantedto deal with Germany again. Before he could throw out theunopened letters, my grandmother answered them and tookcare of any future correspondence from Germany.

� � �

In the 1950s because of continued adversity, my father, at agetwenty-five, changed his last name from Cohn to Crane butdid not explain it to me until I was a teenager, and even thenhe preferred that I not discuss it with anyone as “It’s no one’sbusiness.” Many of the women in this book talked about their

8 DIVIDED LIVES

Jewish or “Aryan” name that either marked them for orprotected them from persecution. Although we in the UnitedStates may think that all this was “only in Germany,” the factis that anti-Semitism was everywhere. Even though myfather’s identity was a German Christian and, later, an Amer-ican Christian, his past, which identified him as aMischling, asa “race” that did not in reality exist and that he neverunderstood, followed him. My father’s own tormentershaunted him: the Nazi teacher, Herr Stolp, who, in 1938 beathim mercilessly everyday in front of the class (causing perma-nent hearing loss) to prove what a Jew hater and good Nazihe was; the Americans who saw him as the enemy because hewas German and who banned him from walking down certainMidwestern streets; the American high school principal whotold him he was not mature enough for college (despite myfather’s lengthy resumé of jobs and responsibilities) and that,anyway,Michigan State was the only college that took Jewishstudents (this despite the fact that all of my father’s schoolrecords classified him as Protestant, which he had alwaysbeen); and his employer on theWestCoast, Long-Bell LumberCompany, in 1954, who would not promote him because, hesaid, “We can’t put a salesman with a Jewish name into theMidwest calling on lumber yards and expect him to meet salesgoals. He would not be accepted by his customers!”

Two weeks after the job incident, my father changed hisname legally to Crane, and the company promoted andtransferred him to Kansas City. My mother, Joan Cummins,had married my father despite some protests from hermother. My mother was only twenty-one, obviously in love,and not too concerned about what was “in a name.”My fatherhad talked with his father about changing his name, whichmy grandfather understood was necessary, as other familymembers had done the same. My parents sat down with thephone book, and because in those days all their towels andsilver were monogrammed, they wanted the last name to

The Spirit 9

remain a C and bemonosyllabic like Cohn. They decided thatCrane sounded okay. Later, when he returned to his home-town in Ohio as a Crane and not a Cohn, my father sensedthat the Zion Lutheran church to which he formerlybelonged and the Jewish community alike were miffed. Yetmy father was tired of the discrimination he had faced, andhe did not want his soon-to-arrive children (who would beraised and baptized Presbyterian, like his wife) to face anyunnecessary hassles because of a last name. Interestinglyenough, many parents of the Mischlinge in this book also haddone this. They may not have changed their names, but theybaptized their children and were adamantly Christian. Theysevered all Jewish roots so that they could be “officially”assimilated into German culture. For my father, there wasnothing inherently wrong with being Jewish, nor was it areligion to scoff at, but the only remnant of my paternalfamily’s “Jewishness” was a last name that prior toHitler hadno major significance. This identity of “being Jewish” wasimposed on them. With the rise of Hitler, their name andbloodline marked them, changing all of their lives forever.

� � �

In 1994when I received the Fulbright toHamburg,Germany,I could not envision how it would change my life. I waspursuing a project that encompassed my primary field ofstudy in graduate school, personal narratives, which centeredon the contextualizing of my grandmother’s manuscript thatI had retrieved from the basement, a twenty-four chapterhistorical memoir that discussed her life, hardships, andphilosophy in the years from 1915 to 1939 in Austria andHamburg before her emigration to the United States. Iproofread and edited her original manuscript, which had beencompiled from nineteen years of journal notes and typed at

10 DIVIDED LIVES

her kitchen table in Hamilton, Ohio. Although later shepublished her original manuscript, at the time I applied forthe Fulbright, a definitive version had not been written.7

Therefore, initially my research was to provide additionalinformation and to expand on the foundations of this manu-script. My grandmother’s work touches on the specific polit-ical, social, and religious upheavals originating in theWeimarperiod that, she believes, transformed the Germany she hadknown.My grandmother had a degree from a business school,and had worked at a young age, treasuring her independence.Ironically, my grandmother had worked for my great-grand-father, Senator Carl Cohn, a formidable figure, years beforeshe met my grandfather in a housing community where shewas the bookkeeper and he the resident doctor. What inter-ested me most, and what later became my focus, was her roleas a middle-class Austrian Lutheran, an “Aryan,” married tomy grandfather, an upper-class German of Jewish descent, a“non-Aryan.” Their marriage, considered a Jewish-Christianone, was labeled a Mischehe (“mixed marriage”) anddenounced as illegal under Hitler’s laws.

To better understand “mixed-marriage” situations, I con-ducted research in the Hamburg State Archives, locating myfamily’s emigration documents that once had been overseenby an arm of the Gestapo. Ironically, these files had reap-peared recently after years of being “lost.” Because of lawsgoverning these archives, I was not able to see these files untilmy family granted the archive permission to give them to me.Via a loophole in the laws, I obtained permission from thearchives’ director.

This feeling of “Let’s not speak of it” extended to allgroups: Jews, Mischlinge, Germans, and the government. Myown experiences of secrecy were directly related to what hadoccurred during the Third Reich. My study of these fileshelped me later in my interviews because I better understoodthe horrendous rigmarole, the endless, ubiquitous tracking

The Spirit 11

system of the Nazis. Similarly, many of the women in theirstories talk about the endless bureaucracy, and the letters ofpleading and “proving” one’s “Aryan” heritage. Seeing myfamily’s names listed in an index pertaining to the records ofan arm of the Gestapo, Oberfinanzpräsident (OFP), the headof finance, was harrowing. There had been many officesaround Hamburg that were simply awful where one had to goto ask to leave the country. This meant that no one got out“illegally,” as they went through this long, grueling process toleave. After 1939 it was nearly impossible to get out through“legal” means. I was fascinated by all the calculations ofpossessions. There were letters back and forth between thewicked OFP and the family. In every one of my family’s fileswere documents fromMMWarburg andCo. Familymemberssold jewelry to the company,which also hadmy family’s Konto(bank) number; which means Warburg and Co. controlledtheir banking. Their official letters ended with Heil Hitler!

which is what most people had to write, as if they were beingwatched.Other letters closedwithMitDeutschenGrüssen! (withGerman greetings), which today has been replaced with Mit

Freundlichen Grüssen! (with friendly greetings). These signa-tures were imperative to show the writer’s nationalism. Inearly had to get up and leave at times because I could feel theinterrogation of the Nazis and the frustration of my grand-mother in the letters, and the immensity of the endless calcu-lations of the family’s worth. There were letters begging thatthey be allowed to keep some of their possessions. Forinstance, my grandmother asked to take her typewriter. Theofficial letters had her categorized as “Aryan,” and when mygrandfather was mentioned, “nicht Aryan” was written inparentheses. The mention of their status as divided from eachother was shocking but certainly helped her get out of thecountry. TheMischlingwomen, in their stories that follow, alsorepeatedly mentioned this pervasive classification system thatwas on every document in the Third Reich.

12 DIVIDED LIVES

In the files of Carl August, my great-uncle, the selling ofhis house, to every single item he owned, is listed. There areletters hewrote to theOFPpleading, “Please, can I keep this?”The Nazis had marks or circles around some of his words,analyzing them for falsehoods. One of the Gestapo’s repliessaid that the points he argued in his last letter were not solidenough. The last name, Cohn, was always underlined with redpencil, and the correspondents refer to him as Jewish. Curi-ously, copies of the anti-Jewish laws prohibiting his familyfrom this or that were attached to one of his letters. My great-grandfather, a Hamburg senator from 1921 to 1929, also hada large file containing numerous articles about his death andfuneral in 1931, and newspaper articles he had written.8 Mygrandmother was thankful that he died before he could seewhat his homeland would become. The Mischling women alsomentioned how they were glad an elderly relative had diedbefore Hitler’s time, so they did not have to live through it. Inanother file, there was a list of all the people who contributedmoney to make my grandmother’s exit possible. It was a lot ofmoney by my calculations. I knew all about these events, but tosee them in these official documents where entire lives weredetermined is something again. Not only sheer tension droveme from the archives, but also my grandmother’s concernsabout digging into the past. After I had been trekking to thearchives for a while, I returned to the United States briefly.Talks with my grandmother started to steer me away fromdead documents. Once again, just like the Mischlinge in theirstories, the need to be secret and protective surfaced in mygrandmother’s personality.

So I turned my gaze away from the family and searchedfor personal documents of Jewish women who had marriedGerman men, or, like my grandmother, German women whohad married Jewish men.Women’s lives at that time had beenmore of a private than a public matter; thus few documentsmentionedwomen, nomatter what their background. Because

The Spirit 13

of the missing women’s lives, the hunting quickly became adaunting task. In the archives, I was not only burdened withlanguage barriers but also with gender barriers. It was tellingthat I found hardly any information on women at all, and Iwanted to know why. Because life outside the archives had tobe more invigorating, I decided to interview surviving Mis-

chlinge. As I interacted daily with more Germans, it becameapparent that speaking with living women was more immedi-ate, despite the fact that I was told “you won’t find anyone,”as so many Jewish survivors were deceased. And, indeed,among the survivors, there was not a long line of anxiousinterviewees ready to disclose their traumatic experiences.Interrogation, violence, spying, mistrust, and silence consti-tuted the sphere of “normal” behavior in the 1930s and 1940s.These women had learned how to dodge their oppressors, tolie, to protect themselves and their families. They were livingpeacefully with a hidden past. Nevertheless, I continued mysearch for women who were partners in or were daughters ofa “mixed marriage.” The “half-Jew” women had a highersurvival rate than “full Jews,” primarily because one of theirparents had been classified “Aryan.”

Knowing that my father (who is of the same generation asthe women I interviewed) vehemently opposed ever returningto Germany, I was curious as to why and how it happened thatsomeMischlinge never left. Why would those who were perse-cuted by their own people remain (even after the war), or ifthey had left temporarily, why would they return? As ImaneuveredwithinHamburg, a city of nearly 2million people,it was no surprise that my investigations continued for sixmonths.Curious listeners have askedme repeatedly, “Howdidyou find the women?” “It wasn’t easy” is my standard reply,and the digging process was lengthy. I began to receive lettersfrom women who were potential interviewees after I devel-oped contacts with community leaders, other researchers, andresearch institutions, and after a notice about my research was

14 DIVIDED LIVES

published in a popular weekend column, VonMensch zuMensch

(from person to person), in the city newspaper on March 5,1995. Once the first contact was tapped, all the subsequentcontacts started to fall like dominoes.

Despite their willingness to present themselves throughletters and phone calls, most of the Mischling women weretentative about being tape recorded and became reticent whenI arrived to interview them; they suddenly realized the enor-mity of disclosing their lives. Nevertheless, by the time I leftGermany, I had twenty taped interviews, primarily withMischling daughters, the products of Jewish/Christian “mixedmarriages.” As historian Claudia Koonz mentioned inMothers

in the Fatherland, “perhaps children felt the impact of anti-Semitism most strongly and earlier than their parents. Chil-dren of Protestant parents considered themselves Protestantseven if they had Jewish grandparents. Suddenly, their Jewishheritage mattered.”9

I created a collection of voices distinguished thematically.These voices recall the same historical experience with varia-tions and with parts of the stories left concealed: All of thewomen are victims, but we get ten stories—distinct, variedpersonalities—out of possible hundreds. The women’s storiescan be likened to Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings, Opus11,” a quiet poignancywith strength. Variances of solitude andintense living are woven throughout their lives. Most storiesend, as the piece does, with calm resolution, a slice of peace.As I cannot claim to be an objective, nonparticipatory viewer,my own personal odyssey—the experience itself and theresultant questioning of values and beliefs—surfaces through-out the book.My nomadic journey withinHamburg (with onesatchel, wandering from lead to lead, moving from house tohouse) was more than an academic one; it was a quest foridentity, a striving to become, in theorist Maria Lugones’swords, a “world-traveller.”10 The knowledge thrust upon methat I was “Other” bound me to theMischlinge and enabled me

The Spirit 15

to hear their stories judiciously; however, my connection alsooccluded any totalizing, integrative experience. I too felt anagging, persistent suspicion of Germans.

I was in Germany at a time of “new unrest.” Although thecountry was unified, those not living in the East insinuatedthat “the East” was a needy, unwanted stepchild draining theeconomy—divergent political and economic philosophies andviews of Germany’s history could not be bridged. In addition,the fifty-year commemoration of the concentration camps’11

liberations had begun. Nonstop TV and public programs andgatherings and newspaper articles threw the 1930s and 40sinto the present. When I arrived, talk of the Third Reich waseverywhere in themedia, but not onmany citizens’ lips. I heardmoans of “not again” from my landlady when the topicappeared on the news night after night. I certainly knew whatit felt like to have old wounds reopened, but I could notimagine the deepness of this cut.

� � �

If you were to ask the average Jew in America the question,“Do you think of yourself as a Jew first, or an American?’’what would the answer be? Many in the Jewish communityin America, especially those who emigrated from Germany,will say they are Jews first, primarily because of the persecu-tion. I had this discussion with the women I interviewed, andthey think Jews in America identify much more with theirJewishness. More progressive Judaic practices abound in theUnited States. In Germany, many of the Jews are Orthodox,which has alienated them from more progressive Jews there.As a few of the women mentioned, some Jews will not attendthe synagogue in Hamburg, as it is too conservative and strict.A few interviewees commented on the large number of Euro-pean Jews living in the United States who escaped from or

16 DIVIDED LIVES

survived the Third Reich. A number of the intervieweesquestioned if perhaps American Jews are not as forgiving asIsraeli Jews, or if they are more disconnected from theirorigins. The women answered that many Jews in Israel stillspeak German and are tied to their former culture through thelanguage; thus, they harbor, even nurse, a connection toGermany. The Jews in America have gained a physical andpsychological distance from the past, which does not fosternostalgia. Often, for them, the German language and cultureare dead, and quantified anger and the reality of what hap-pened to them and their family stands in its place. EstherBejarano, a survivor of Auschwitz with whom I talked,returned from Israel to live in Germany after having barelymade it out alive from Auschwitz. Why return? The answerseems to relate, in part, to money. The persecuted returneesreceive pensions, and, compared to Israel, the cost of living isbetter in Germany. Otherwise, as Jews, they may not havereturned. After the war my great-uncle,Werner Cohn, and hiswife returned to Germany. They lived in Hamburg only oneyear, then claimed they could not stand the climate and had toreturn to South Africa. Not many of the formerly persecutedpeople could return and remain. I am sure many Germans areproud to be Germans, whether Jew or Gentile. However, it isnearly impossible for Germans to display their pride in Ger-many. Certain acts of nationalism are against the law becausethis is part of what led Germany into difficulty in the 1920sand 1930s.

My father called Germany his “graveyard,” ponderingwhy he should return for a visit. He readily recalled how hewas beaten byHerr Stolp—day in and day out—as an exampleto the other school children of an “inferior.” Did these childrennot understand, as my father did not? He just wanted to weara uniform (forbidden to him) like all the other boys—to belongto whatever they belonged to. He was an outsider but he didnot understand why. The schoolchildren were told he was the

The Spirit 17

cause of Germany’s ailments. They could tell their parents “a‘half Jew’ was put in his place today.” From what source doesthis mentality derive? Perhaps the Third Reich is still ahistorical aberration. Primo Levi states in regard to the isola-tion of the Jews and the concentration camp system,

At no other place or time has one seen a phenomenon so

unexpected and so complex: never have so many human

lives been extinguished in so short a time, and with so lucid

a combination of technological ingenuity, fanaticism, and

cruelty.No onewants to absolve the Spanish conquistadors

of the massacres perpetrated in the Americas throughout

the sixteenth century. It seems theybrought about the death

of at least sixty million Indios; but they acted on their own,

without or against the directives of their government.12

My father reluctantly came back to Hamburg when Iwas living there. One day, as we walked down Rothenbaum-chaussee, a long street in Hamburg, he turned to me and said,“I feel afraid.” He also was consternated when we went byhis former house in Fuhlsbüttel and he noticed the name plateon his neighbor’s home: The same family who had “spied” onhis family, offering reportage about his family’s comings andgoings to the Gestapo, still lived next door. As he was waitingat the airport to return to the United States, three hoursbefore his departure, his name was called over the loud-speaker. His face blanched, his breathing slowed, and hiseyes appeared distant, “Now what could they want with me?Are they going to keep me here?” I too felt alarmed. It wasan anachronistic moment; both of us, for our own reasons,were thrown back in time. Slowly, he walked down the stairsto the appropriate counter and, of course, it was merely amix-up with his bags. He explained to me that when theytried to leave Germany in 1939, he and his siblings sat ontrains, ready to board a boat to leave the country, only to find

18 DIVIDED LIVES

out they needed newly required papers. According to mygrandmother, the ante was always upped. Just when shethought she had all the papers, the government changed thelaws. In order to leave Germany, my grandmother neededapproximately twelve official documents. On and off thetrains, waiting and waiting, week after week, my fatherfeared they would never get to the United States.Would theyalways watch the boats leaving without them? To this day,he has fears about missing flights, and if you travel with myfather, you are guaranteed a long airport wait.

The Lutheran minister who preached in my father’sformer church, St. Lukas, while he was visiting during thefifty-year remembrance ceremonies, said that evil resides inthe world. It is man’s creation. God gave man freedom to actandmake decisions. Otherwise wewould bemeremarionetteswithGod pulling the strings. One can give up onmankind, butone must not give up on God. An answer, but not so easy toaccept. My father accepts it only because the Quakers spon-sored himwithmoney that helped to save his life. TheQuakerstook up a collection and turned it over to the family in whosehouse my father and his sister would live and work. Thismoney was a guarantee from the American side that theseforeign childrenwould be subsidized. The guarantee came justdays before they left the country. My father wrote to me onDecember 13, 1994:

The Quakers made it possible for my sister and me to

immigrate andmade it possiblewith theirmoney to put your

grandfather back into the doctor business. The kind of

money they came upwith in the late 30swas great Christian

love and should not be forgotten. That is why I will always

give to the church and its mission work just like your

grandfather did all his life in gratitude, and to make sure

others have the same chance. It’s likeWoody Hayes told it,

“You can’t pay people back, but you canpay them forward.”

The Spirit 19

It is good to ask oneself, “Would I honestly have been ahero at that time?Would I really have taken the chance to losemy life to save others?” Not everyone is a hero, and how canany of us know how we would conduct ourselves in suchcircumstances? We cannot know. We can all only say “I hopethat I would have been one of those who were brave and keptmymorals intact.” There were alsoMischlingewho spoke in therhetoric of the Third Reich even though they themselves werepersecuted, which made my skin crawl. Somehow, they felt soGerman that they did or said anything they could to keep theirGerman identity intact. I can imagine that my grandfatherwent through this agonizing internal struggle as well—all thequestions and musings—“Ah, it will pass over. Hitler will bejust a fly in the bucket.” Or, “I am German and cannot goelsewhere.” It is sad to think of my grandfather’s emigrationbecause I know he loved his country. This I can understand.It was easier for my grandmother as far as “nationalistic”feelings because she was truly Austrian and so much younger.It was hard on the children, as the stories in this book show. Ilived with these ponderings and questions everyday that I wasin Germany.

Finally, for me, this book is a personal journey. ChristaWolf, in her book Patterns of Childhood, tried to resurrect acuriosity that was squelched during Hitler’s reign by allowingher curiosity to lead her through the past, back to her home-town, ultimately to explain her family’s role and their guilt asAryan “bystanders.” So too have I followed my curiosity toGermany, back tomy father’s hometown, to uncover atrocitiesagainst his family and otherMischlinge that undeniably marredtheir collective psyches. As theorist Paul John Eakin writes,“to write history and finally autobiography is not merely torecover the lost content of the past; it is to perform metaphor-ically a work of personal restoration.”13

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PART I I

THE LAW

You shall know them by their fruits.

—Matt. 8:16

�

Today you wake up and you are told you are not who youthought you were. You are young and have been happilyleading a carefree life, heading into a promising future. Yousit down in the living room and your mother or father revealsone secret in your family that will change your life from thisday forward, forever. The government has changed cleverlyand insidiously from a democracy into a dictatorship, one builton hatred and fear. And you are the scapegoat. You no longerhave the right kind of blood, the right name, the right familybackground, the right physical features to be considered amember of your society, city, or state. Blue eyes and blond hair

22 DIVIDED LIVES

are favored, and you have neither. According to new laws, youhad better be “Aryan,” but by definition, you no longer are.You have always been an insider, but you are now an outsider.You have never been a victim, but now you are victimized.You can no longer attend school, see your familiar friends,have a profession, or marry anyone of your choosing. Nothingand no one is to be trusted. The world you’ve been living inhasmetamorphosed into an incomprehensible labyrinth.Whatgoes through your mind?Why is this happening to me? Is thistrue? I want to die. By degrees, your family is torn apart inways that are irreparable and irreversible. Like having a love,a passion, the likes of which you will never again see, once youhave passed through it, your identity is altered. As with abroken heart, some healed, and some did not. You cannotexplain to others how your soul and heart have been defiled;the nails have left invisible marks that only God can see,although you try to show the marks when someone you trustasks. But there is always a sense that another breach of faithor of confidence will follow, that someone will pick up thehammer again and hit the nails. This is not make-believe, buthappened in this century to people in this book.Whenwe hearsomeone talk about a divided life today, it usually refers to adivision between work and family, or work and social life, orchildren and spouse. It does not readily conjure up images ofthe Third Reich and the Holocaust, of people who were tornbetween a German and a Jewish identity. Through the tenstories of women’s voices here, we receive a clearer picture ofMischlinge and what they endured under Hitler’s laws. In theLübeck memorial chapel, iron bells had fallen in 1942 duringthe Allied bombings and they lay there still, badly broken andmelted on the smashed floor. It is astonishing to see. Laterthese bells haunted me and became a symbol of the Mischling

women: A witness, a survivor, something left behind, but nolonger in its original form. And the fall itself had altered thepiece forever.

The Law 23

With the onset of the Third Reich in January 1933, Jewswere no longer defined under religious or cultural terms, butas a race. The ensuing nomenclature that defined the Jewssignaled an emphasis that was racist rather than religious. Aspecific lexicon illustrated by key termswas used to define andseparate Jews from “normal” or Deutschblütig (pure German)society. Hitler’s regime hoped that by marking and placingpeople into degrading categories, their spirits would becrushed by the separation from their fellow Germans. Hitlerperverted the German language and effectively manipulated itas a psyche breaker. Thus, today, certain terms such as Ehre(honor), Blut ( blood), and Vaterland (fatherland) are not usedwith the patriotic fervor that is still possible in other countries.There are no illegal terms in Germany today, just words thathave a certain aura about them, words that older or “con-scious” people who still remember have trouble listening to orusing. Certain symbols, such as the swastika, indicative ofNational Socialism, are illegal in public, on flags, on medals ofhonor from the war, and on book covers.1 Hitler’s book Mein

Kampf (My Struggle) is not allowed to be sold secondhandunless for “scientific reasons.”2

Language, especially through Nazi propaganda ministerJoseph Goebbels’s pervasive propaganda strategies, and vio-lence were effective means to control the people, and propa-ganda slogans, such as Juda Verrecke! (Judah croak!), Judensind hier nicht erwünscht (Jews notwanted here!), Deutsches Volk!Wehr dich! Kauft nicht beim Juden! (German people, defendyourselves, do not buy from Jews!), Die Juden sind unser

Unglück (The Jews are our misfortune) were widely propa-gated. Nazi publications like Der Stürmer3 and others tried toshow through repetition of certain words—Judenschwein,

(Jewish pig), Ungeziefer (vermin), Schmarotzer (parasite), Par-asiten (parasites)—that Jews and other “outcasts” were sub-human. Terms such as ausmerzen (eliminate), ausrotten

(exterminate), and vernichten (extinguish) lowered inhibitions

24 DIVIDED LIVES

to the idea of Jews being treated like vermin or animals. Thesewords today are taboo among politically correct people.

The Mischling women talk about the impact of thesewords, the cause and effect of Hitler’s evil, and the confusionthat abounded over where they stood within the chaos. Sud-denly, these women did not fit an ordained visage—an Aryan

image. This was a betrayal for theMischlinge—being told theywere members of a Jewish “race,” but having little or no ideawhat being Jewish meant. This takeover of their identity wasthe beginning of their duality of Christian and Jew, Germanand Jew. Formerly, their identity was constructed to a degreefor the purposes of nationalism and national unity, and one daythis changed. This was betrayal. With whom do they identifynow? The women were left with a complex set of emotions,such as an internalized hatred of themselves, often played outin “deathwishes;” hatred of theJewish familymember; of theirnewfound identity; and of those Germans who had relabeledthem. They were victim/victimizer, Jew/Christian, outsider/insider. How could a twentieth century, modern society makesuch laws? How could they then exterminate people? Acomplex question that the women uttered. “How could they

determine a “race”? Where was God, one woman wondered.I found the persecutors and the persecuted were often

embodied in one—a disquieting phenomenon. This is thehorror of the big picture. This division is at the heart ofdivided lives: split identities and torn loyalties, to which manypeople in contemporary society can relate. Although thesewomen were the persecuted, they sometimes thought, andtoday think, the same as the persecutors. Was the victims’silence as dangerous as that of the German perpetrators? Didvictim and oppressor alike suppress the horror in order tomove beyond this chapter in history? Or did only the victimsbury their pain and anger temporarily, waiting for the day tospeak? After the war, many Nazi officials lived on comfort-ably in Austria, Germany, and South and North America,

The Law 25

having found a way to rationalize their actions. Many formerNazis, such as Nazi Women’s League leader Gertrud Scholz-Klink, expressed no qualms about their role in Hitler’s Reich.They still believe today that those twelve years bonded theGerman Volk into a golden nationalism. Perhaps they fail tosee that today a German can scarcely show partiality to hiscountry. Patriotism is a Schimpfwort, dirty word. If acted uponit could again lead to a frenetic nationalism. Germans aredivided by their history. Surprisingly, someMischlingwomenharbored anti-Semitic views. It would be absurd to suggest,however, that undeserved, legalized persecution was neededin order to “straighten these women out.” (That is similar tosaying that someone who managed to survive the camps was“stronger for the experience.”) But their endurance of racialpersecution altered all of these women’s lives to varyingdegrees. They never saw themselves as Jewish: More oftenthan not, their Jewish parent or spouse was fully assimilatedinto German culture, was not religious, or had been baptizedChristian. Today, these women remain zwischen allen Stühlen

(straddling the fence) to various degrees, although it appearsthat this “racial” identity forced some of the women in laterlife to reevaluate their own nationalistic attitudes and theirposition within society. Could they risk hard-won security ofhaving reattained their German status and relative anonym-ity, to talk to me, to draw attention to themselves once again,to dabble in the past? Their fear of discussing their twelveyears of persecution, when they were Jews and no longerGermans, was great.

The group of women that I interviewed is one aboutwhich we rarely hear. These German women who were a partof or were products of a Jewish-Christian “mixed marriage”were persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws4; however, theyhave often been passed over in studies of the Holocaust. Whyis this? Perhaps it is because they are not considered “reallyJewish”; their families had cut their Jewish ties, and, for the

26 DIVIDED LIVES

most part, they were not practicing Jews. These women arestill struggling with the nightmares of the Third Reich and theHolocaust, the loss of family in concentration camps, andwhether or not they are Jewish or Christian. Often, theirJewish background was disclosed to them only after Hitler’slawswere passed, and in some caseswas not revealed for yearsafter the laws were in place. For some of these women, thisJewish identity was their buttress in post–World War IIGermany, as they had to separate themselves from the Ger-mans who were looked upon as Nazis. Although one wouldthink that they could not in good conscience reclaim theirGerman heritage, today some of them have.

Many Germans, including my paternal family, escaped intime; however, many of their relatives and friends did not. Thefollowing stories look at the plight of the people who remainedbehind. At speeches I have given, I am often asked how thesewomen manage to live in a country that once had been theirrefuge but had betrayed them. These women are often likenedto other “mixed” people in the United States. As we becomemore interracial as a society, questions of cultural and ethnicidentity arise. Although obviously we do not live under atotalitarian regime, those of us who are “hyphenated” Ameri-cans wrestle with issues of loyalty and identity to one groupor another. Most of the interviewees in my book are stillsearching for a cultural, religious, or national identity as aresult of their persecution.

German historian Ursula Büttner mentions that “apartfrom the Jews themselves, several hundreds of thousands ofpeople, a number originally perhaps just short of 400,000,suffered as a result of the National Socialist racial lunacybecause they were spouses, children or grandchildren ofJews.”5 Between 1935 and 1945 those who lived in “mixedmarriages” as well as “half Jews” were persecuted as “non-Aryans.” After the instatement of the April Laws (CivilService Law) of 1933, Jews were cast out from the civil

The Law 27

service and prohibited from taking up certain professions(legal and medical) and enrolling in particular schools anduniversities. On September 15, 1935, the Nuremberg Lawstook away German citizenship from those who were not of“German or related blood.” Marriages and sexual relationswere also prohibited between Jews and “pure Germans.”Jews and Germans were prohibited from “mixing”; doing sowas an act of Rassenschande (racial defilement), and waspunishable by law and viewed as treasonous. Although it wasillegal to stay married to a Jew if you were German, theauthorities found it difficult to enforce this law. When theinitial push for divorces of “mixed marriages” did not showthe desired results, the Gestapo put pressure on the “Aryan”wife or husband to file for divorce; very few left their Jewishpartners. Oftentimes, the marriage continued inconspicu-ously while the couple lived apart. It would have beendangerous for the couple had the Gestapo detected that thebonds between them were intact. For the “Aryan” man,maintaining amarriage with a woman of Jewish origin meantthat he could be fired or at least face disadvantages in hisprofession. An “Aryan” woman married to a man of Jewishorigin primarily had to face harassment and often had to useher “Aryan” privileges to rescue members of her husband’sfamily from camps. The major consequence for a Jewishpartner in a “mixed marriage” who left (or was left) was morediscrimination—fewer food and clothes stamps—and later,instant deportation and death. For the Jewish partner mar-ried to an “Aryan,” it was crucial that the marriage not end.Government pressure and harassment to divorce was diffi-cult for couples to withstand. There was no discernable legaldifference between Jewish men or Jewish women who lefttheir marriages, as both were considered enemies of the state.In the interviews with the Mischlinge it is worth noting thatthe “Aryan” men in a “mixed marriage” did not live very long,perhaps because of the emotional and physical trauma of

28 DIVIDED LIVES

being married to a Jew and their subsequent loss of statusand professional position in society. If they returned fromconcentration camps, the Jewish women to whom these menwere married tended to live long lives.

The Nuremberg Laws and the “law of the preservation ofGerman blood andGerman honor” as well as other orders thatregulated behavior, split up the persecuted into two groups:Jews (German nationals) but not citizens, meaning they werenot allowed to vote or run for public office, andMischlinge,whowere considered temporary citizens. A personwas a “full Jew”if he or she had at least three Jewish grandparents. AGeltungs-

jude, a self-declared or believing Jew, could be a personwithout Jewish grandparents who was a member of theJewish community because he or she converted at the time ofmarriage or had decided to become a Jew for other reasons.Self-declaredJewswere dealtwith asJews anddeported from1943 onward. Hitler’s objective for the future was to separate“Germans” from Jews and “mixed persons.”

Mischlinge were divided into those of first and seconddegree—Mischling ersten grades and Mischling zweiten grades. Afirst-degree “half Jew” was a person with two Jewish grand-parents. A second-degree “quarter Jew” had one Jewishgrandparent. Both groups remained temporary citizens butwere subject to strict marriage restrictions. Eventually, theirrights decreased until they had none. Nazi policies were lessrestrictive toward second-degreeMischlinge. First-degreeMis-

chlinge were allowed to marry people of German blood only ifthey received a practically unattainablemarriage approval thatentailed Gestapo supervision. Second-degree Mischlinge, onthe other hand, could only marry persons of German stock.First-degree Mischlinge were further divided into two groups.The first were the Geltungsjuden. Although they fell under thedefinition ofMischlinge, they were treated as “full Jews.” Theywere permitted to marry either Jews or other Geltungsjuden.The second group consisted of those who had been baptized

The Law 29

Christian (the majority of women I interviewed). Accordingto historian Nathan Stoltzfus, “Baptized Mischlinge outnum-bered Geltungsjuden by nine to one, since only 11 percent ofMischlinge belonged to Jewish communities.”6

In December 1938, after Kristallnacht, the laws made adistinction between “privileged” and “non-privileged” “mixedmarriages.” They were “privileged” if the woman was Jewishor if there were children who were raised Christian and wereunder age eighteen. Hitler created this “mixed marriage”category because he feared alienating the “Aryan” half of thesemarriages. They were “non-privileged” when the childrenwere considered Jews or when the man was Jewish and thecouple had no children. Most of those in “privileged mixedmarriages” were not forced to relocate to houses designatedfor Jews and were not deported until toward the end of thewar. The National Socialists concentrated on those marriagesin which the man was Jewish. The irony here is that by doingso, they reversed the Jewish concept of lineage. For Jews, thematrilineal is more important in determining who is Jewish inthe family as opposed to the German patriarchal, patrilinealdefinition of Jews as a race.

The majority of marriages between Jews and non-Jewswere considered “privileged.” Because of centuries of anti-Semitism, most of the German-Jewish parents and theirchildren had been baptized. They feared persecution if theydid not distance themselves from the Jewish faith. Mostmembers of “privileged” marriages belonged to the middleclass, and they had tried to “make it” by assimilating intoGerman culture. Beginning January 1, 1939 Hitler decreedthat on allGerman-Jewish identification cards,which alreadybore the letter “J,” the name “Sara” would be added forwomen, and “Israel” for men. A few of the Mischling womenmentioned the violation they felt for their mothers who wereoften addressed simply as “Sara.” In September 1941 Jewswere forced towear and display the yellowStar ofDavid sewn

30 DIVIDED LIVES

onto their clothing. The starmarked the Jews for deportation.There was an arbitrariness concerning Mischlinge wearingstars, as Joseph Goebbels was still uncertain what to do withthem.Whether aMischlingewore a star often depended on theattitude of the local Gauleiter (regional Nazi leader)—themore beastly and fanatical he was, the higher the chance aMischlinge might wear a star. Thus, they were forced to weara star in certain places, but not in others.

To equalize Jews and Mischlinge, Nazi leaders at varioustimes, as at a conference in 1941 and at the Wannsee Confer-ence on January 20, 1942, suggested that Mischlinge beforcefully sterilized or deported to camps, and even theirGerman spouses be deported with them. However, they didnot know how to put this into action without causing publicoutcry from the German families, and Hitler, and Goebbels,in particular, stalled the issue. Finally, they were hindered bythe turn of the war.

In 1940, men whowere married to Jews were dischargedfrom the army, with some exceptions. In 1943, men in “mixedmarriages” received drafts from the Organization Todt(OT),7 and a year later were drafted for forced labor. Initially,the group of forced laborers were to be driven east toconstruct roads, however, in Hamburg they were needed firstof all to build up the destroyed infrastructure, to clean-up,and to recover dead bodies and material. In late 1944 womenin “mixed marriages” were forced into labor groups. Thesporadic, random transports of Mischlinge began in February1945, and those from Hamburg (as seen in many of thestories) and other areas were sent to Theresienstadt, a campin which people were worked into their graves, rather thangassed, or transferred to extermination camps such asAuschwitz. Several hundred died in the process. Fortunately,the chaos of the war’s end interrupted the process or thetargeting of Mischlinge would have become systematic. Theywere the next wave of deportees.

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If anyone in theMischling categories acted against the lawsor “suspiciously” in public or private, according to an“Aryan’s” report, they received a greater punishment, such asimprisonment or, later, deportation, than someone not in thesedesignated groups. The degree of persecution againstMischlinge depended on a variety of circumstances, such as:birth year, gender, parental ability to protect their offspring,social environment, the solidarity of “Aryan” relatives, and theneighborhoods in which they lived.Mischlinge lived in a policestate in which adult neighbors and their children had theultimate power to denounce them. Often neighbors spied andwere given a sense of autonomy and power when they couldturn in their Jewish neighbor for listening to the BBC or for“acting strangely,” for instance, leaving home at odd timesduring the day or evening. An Aryan’s word against a Jew’salways had precedence.

The laws worsened year by year, a planned process(although this is debated by historians) culminating in die

Endlösung (the Final Solution) or, in Hebrew, Shoah (catastro-phe). Over a half-million Germans were considered Jewishunder the Nuremberg Laws. Most of the labeled Jewish“asocials” were “outside” of normal time. The Mischlinge stillhad their German part to exploit, to hold onto; there was asemblance of hope. But they never knewwhen the laws wouldshift again. Civil laws were constantly revoked, rearranged,and reestablished. Stability amid the chaos was possible onlyfor “pure” Germans. Evenwith all this anti-Jewish legislation,many of the womenmentioned that not until Kristallnacht wasthe seriousness of Hitler’s intentions internalized. My grand-mother’s story of single-handedly working through the Nazibureaucracy for the release of my great-uncle from a campafter this “rounding up of the Jews” corroborates this.

The narratives that follow are based on copious notes Itook during and after the interviews and translated taperecordings. The interviews inevitably focused on issues of

32 DIVIDED LIVES

identity and gender that arose under the patriarchal machineof National Socialism. Clearly, all of the women’s identitieswere fractured to some degree, but as they spoke of thedesolation of their worlds, the crumbling of their formativeyears, they seemingly either reconstructed or reinvented theirlives as they were speaking. In the telling of their stories, theyeach crafted and sometimes gave birth to a “fictional” identity,one that protected them from the pain of their history asvictims. In “Authorizing the Autobiographical,” theorist ShariBenstock states, “Language, which operates according to theprinciples of division and separation, is the medium by whichand through which the ‘self’ is constructed.”8 In some sense, Ihelped them to create this self, this autobiography. My roleinterviewing these survivors included coming to terms withmy own life as a daughter of a Mischling and survivor. I dealtwith countless language and cultural barriers in my search forstories that validated but also diverged from my own, oftennightmarish, family stories. I played the role of listener,recorder, and excavator of long-buriedmaterial andmemories.I was entrusted with these women’s narratives because of my“spiritual” connection to their history. I lived what they hadexperienced through my grandmother’s and father’s stories,the confusion of being “outsiders,” neither German nor Jew-ish, and in particular, my father surviving torment as aMischling that has shaped who he is today. I am aware of andhave acknowledged my positionality, where I stand as a first-generation American, also torn betweenmy feelings of kinshipand enmity toward Germany. It was up to me then to deliverthe narratives in a compelling way. There was a transatlanticlink between the women and me—a connection to a dysfunc-tion that they knew made me a sympathetic listener. Dr. DoriLaub, psychoanalyst, states, “Bearing witness to a trauma is,in fact, a process that includes the listener. For the testimonialprocess to take place, there needs to be a bonding, the intimateand total presence of an other—in the position of one who

The Law 33

hears. Testimonies are not monologues; they cannot take placein solitude. The witnesses are talking to somebody; to some-body they have beenwaiting for for a long time.”9 I think thesewomen’s stories have always been there waiting for me.

The following statement, made by author IngeborgHecht, best characterizes all of the interviewees’ lives: “Wewere stripped of our rights, denied the opportunity to train forworthwhile professions, prevented from building up a liveli-hood, forbidden to marry. We shared the fears of those whofailed to survive persecution, but we also had to endure theshame of having fared better than our fathers, our relations,our friends. We did not emerge unscathed.”10 These womencarry an enormous burden; they live between the extremes,juggling twoworlds. They represent a variety of backgrounds,although the majority would be considered, by German mea-sure, to be in the educated middle or upper class, a class mostaffected by the ban from the civil service, universities, andskilled jobs. All of the women’s fathers were professionals.RuthWilmschen’s and IngridWecker’s fatherswere classifiedas Beamte (civil servants), because they worked for the state asa teacher and principal, and a policeman, respectively. Mostof them were from the northern port city of Hamburg, thesecond largest city in Germany.

The discrimination against the “mixed” women was, attimes, so severe thatmany of them suffered after-effects similarto those of camp survivors, as psychologist Louise Kaplandocumented—physical illness and/or mental dementia thatcreated a wall between the present and past. Kaplan calls this“transposition . . . where the past reality of the parent intrudesinto present psychological reality of the child.” Even thoughthese women were not deported, they continually created intheirminds the suffering of a parentwho returned, or the deathof a parent who perished in a camp. Kaplan states, “Thechildren of survivors were living out and dreaming out theirparents’ nightmares. The children were enacting experiences

34 DIVIDED LIVES

and relating fantasies that could only come from a person whohad actually been in a ghetto or extermination camp.”11

These German women are caught between the Nazidefinitions of patriots and “asocials”; their grief, manifested inphysical pain andmental anguish, provides a murkier realm ofstudy than the thoroughly researched grief of camp survivors.I found that traumatic ostracization led to repressed memoriesof the “mixed”women’s outsider status, which, in turn, createdsome real or imagined physical ailments. After the war, it wasimperative they “be” German again—having repressed theirnegative experiences as victims, they were able to function,albeit superficially. After “purging” themselves through hos-pitalization, therapy, orwork, did thesewomenbegin to heal—a prerequisite for coming to terms with their position inpresent-day Germany? Although their footing is precarious atbest, these women have reached a point where they can speakopenly, but often only with people they have carefully scruti-nized. Their split identity—between victim and participant,Jew and Gentile—which they attempted to ignore or repress,appeared to be the cause of physical and mental ailments.

Some of the conversations with the women came fromquestions that comprised my questionnaire or were questionsformed fromdiscussions I hadwithMonikaRicharz, academicdirector at the Institute for the History of German Jews inHamburg. Family dynamics from 1933 to after the war—families under stress—was always the central topic of our talksand was an issue in all of the interviews. To what extent awoman’s identity was affected or changed often depended onhow the family interpreted their situation. The story alwaysbeganwith themarriage of the parents andgrandparents.Howdid the racial laws split the family? Was there pressure todivorce? What were the reactions to that? Did the “Aryan”partner drop or support the Jewish partner? Was there amajor split or solidarity?What happened to their identity oncethey were designated for racial persecution in all its manifes-

The Law 35

tations under the Nuremberg Laws? How did some of themcope with suddenly “being Jewish” when they had never beenexposed to Judaism or ever entered a synagogue? Do they“feel” Jewish now as a consequence of their former “stigmati-zation”? Are they actively “pro-Jewish”? Neutral? Christian?How was Jewish identity transmitted, if at all? How did theirexperience of persecution affect their psyches? How do theyconduct their lives in Germany? Do they cover up or openlytalk about the past?

These are some of the issues discussed in the followingstories. There are myriad answers. Many women responded tothese questions with rather disturbing answers—at times,contradictory to or in denial of their former plight as “outsid-ers.” A few resorted, perhaps unconsciously, to NationalSocialist words, a vocabulary particular to the Third Reich,when talking about the past. A few of them related briefsections of their stories in English, certainly because of mypresence as an American. I was careful to include all of thequestions in each interview, but the women chose how theywanted to engage their liveswithme.Most of themdid not needto be questioned before they began to talk; they simply startedwith a vivid memory. They spoke primarily in three differentmodes: stream of consciousness, associative, or linear. Byrequest, a few of the women’s last names have been eliminatedor changed, and events might not be relayed in their entirety.Necessarily, because of the voluminous oral material, I had tomake decisions about what was relevant to this story and toframe their narratives accordingly. Sometimes this entailedmoving around some material or excising tangential chitchat,but never changing the stories or factual events. As Israeliauthor Aharon Appelfeld said, “Life in the Holocaust . . . wasso ‘rich’ one could choke on it. The literary problem is not topile up fact upon fact, but rather to choose the most necessaryones, the ones that touch the heart of the experience and not itsedges.”12 This does not change the “facts” of the stories, which

36 DIVIDED LIVES

are historically accurate according to the women’s memories.History is perceived differently from country to country andfrom generation to generation. History is not static and diach-ronic. Many of the women claim to discuss German history asthe Germans perceive it and tell it.

The stories of these Mischling women—Ingeborg Hecht,Ingrid Wecker, Ruth Yost, Ruth Wilmschen, Gretel andSigrid Lorenzen, Ursula Randt, Ilse B., Margot Wetzel, andUrsula Bosselmann—display vividly the trauma these womenendured during and after the Third Reich, and the copingmechanisms they sought after or adopted. Wilmschen’s, Wet-zel’s, Bierstedt’s, and Bosselmann’s mothers were deported tocamps. Yost’s and Randt’s fathers escaped Germany, GretelLorenzen’s father was deported to a camp, Wecker’s fatherwas killed by the Nazis, and Hecht’s was purportedly exter-minated in Auschwitz. Many of the women experiencedtrauma symptoms that did not necessarily dissipate once theyhad “purged” their memories. As Laub says,

The traumatic event, although real, took place outside the

parameters of “normal” reality, such as causality, sequence,

place and time. The trauma is thus an event that has no

beginning, no ending, no before, no during and no after.

This absence of categories that define it lends it a quality of

“otherness,” a salience, a timelessness and a ubiquity that

puts it outside the range of associatively linked experiences, outside

the range of comprehension, of recounting and of mastery.

Trauma survivors live not with memories of the past, but

with an event that could not and did not proceed through

to its completion, has no ending, attained no closure, and

therefore, as far as its survivors are concerned, continues

into the present and is current in every respect.13

Hence, the women repeatedly commented, “I can’tdescribe this,” and “you can’t imagine” as they attempted to

The Law 37

narrate their past lives in the present. They could not escapethe fact that they were victims at one time, that the people withwhom they lived had been their persecutors. This problem isseen also in the United States, such as with African Americansand Native Americans. It would seem a difficult thing foranyone to live peacefully among her tormenters. This problemexists in many other nations. South Africa, Argentina, andother states have collapsed and been renewed under somewhatless authoritarian conditions. There is a lot of bitterness andinability to forget.Wemust look at theMid-East, the Balkans,Rwanda/Botswana, and other regions where these hatredscontinue for generations and generations. Perhaps it is justpart of the human condition—not really a disease that can be“healed,” or a trauma that can be “purged.” The issues that theMischling women faced can be bridged to the present inAmerica. In a country verging sometimes on amorality, veryoften pushed by the media, we grasp at techniques such asdehumanization, stereotypes, and violence to talk about or actagainst “enemies.” Do the same fears still predominate inhuman nature, a need to exterminate for racial cleansing, andthe fear of the unknown?

History is difficult to escape. TheseMischlingwomen havelittle, if any, support in Germany today. Silence is preferableto talking to the “wrong” person about their background.Perhaps this is why they still struggle to one degree or anotherwith their identities.MostMischlingewho survived do not havesupportwithin the JüdischeGemeinde (Jewish community). The“mixed” women are still “mixed” psychologically and socially.They rarely and cautiously reveal their heritage or their formeroutcast status so as not to draw attention to themselves. Oftenthey have not disclosed their past to children or grandchildren.For the most part, they want to be included in German societyand not be seen aswomenwhowere once considered “inferior”or “outsiders” by the majority. Even though now they canspeak about their past, they protect their current status. Few

38 DIVIDED LIVES

of the women had ever spoken, and had not disclosed theiridentity split between Jew and Christian. To the outsideworld, they were Germans.

What these women discuss can be viewed as a warningto other cultures. We see what transpires from racist fanati-cism and fascism. Through these women’s narratives we notonly can better understand women’s plight under authorizedpersecution, but also the personal, individual traumas theywithstood in regard to self, parents, lovers, husbands, chil-dren, and career. During the era of National Socialism,women more than men tended to be attached to communitylife, and they were more aware of their disintegrating world.Women also were expected to remain at home to care forparents and siblings, whereas menwere more mobile and able(by virtue of their gender) to hide or emigrate. Because thesewomen lived in constant turmoil, with relationships shiftingso dramatically, they had to escape from their lives, essen-tially, from their selves, in some manner—physically, psycho-logically, or both.

According to Ursula Büttner,

There is a vast literature on the Holocaust, but relatively

little has been written analyzing the situation of Christian-

Jewish “mixed” families in the Third Reich. (No doubt this

is due to the fact that, unlike the Jews not in any “privi-

leged” position, the majority survived the war). . . . How

these measures (the general Jewish policies of the Nazi

regime) affected the day-to-day life of those involved and

how their position deteriorated during the course ofHitler’s

rule has yet to be explored.14

Many academics, including Raul Hilberg, argued thatdiscrimination against the Mischlinge was not severe.15 How-ever, the narratives that make up my book dispute suchhistorical suppositions. As Büttner claims, “Reports of those

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involved give another picture of the persecution of that time.That is why a new look at this subject is necessary.”16 Whatfollows is that new look.

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PART I I I

STORIES

�

I look in their faces for signs of this country twisted in theireyes. Sitting in my place around the table amid Kaffee und

Kuchen, a German woman’s hospitality, the microphone blackand silver and large rests out of place, a long chord into therecorder. I look around their homes for signs of their stories—a canvas embroideredwith a collage ofmenorahs dangles fromthe wall, a pen and ink drawing of a death camp victim, an oilpainting of a murdered peasant, an uncle. Inevitably, there issome sign. Often, it is books—the Holocaust, the Jewish“situation”—because the women believe they can learn byabsorbing others’ words and opinions of a time they experi-enced, books describing or explaining Hitler’s reign. Theylived it. But they falter to describe it. I look in the women’sfaces for signs of this country twisted in their eyes. Some cryover their lost childhood, a child contorted to fit into rules thatadults could not comprehend nor explain to them. They ask

42 DIVIDED LIVES

themselves rhetorical questions; “Can I retrieve lost time?”Andwho can sayNo. Someplay house now—crying over deador Nazi husbands, choosing the wrong man again and again,too many divorces, no husbands at all, no children, estrangedchildren, no friends—like the beginning of life again but it istowards the end. They kick their feet under the table, stab thetraditional rich pastries and cakes with their forks, slurpcoffee—all seemingly tasteless. And they rant. And I sympa-thize. And record. No one will forget what trauma humanbeings inflict on each other. The women are pulling at theircollars; thumbing buttons in and out of buttonholes; twistingtheir hair, necklaces around their necks, rings around andaround their fingers; clacking their dentures; tapping theirpencils; rustling then clamping then smudging their notes;pulling down their library shelves full of Third Reich texts ortexts about the Third Reich—tossing volumes on the tablebeforeme, dragging out old photo albumswith black andwhiteor sepia-toned pictures framed by four glued squares thatloosely hold these “before Hitler” memories—and then full,framed pictures of their Jewish grandfather or beloved grand-parents hidden in boxes under beds, wrapped in multiplelayers of brown paper to protect them and themselves frompotential scrutiny. Still so much secrecy. Fear flowed throughthe walls. Women whispered to me, covered the sides of theirmouths when recalling Nazi propaganda. One woman askedme if my German friend was a Nazi—als Sie leben noch, und

werden immer, wahrscheinlich (as they still live, and probablyalways will). And when extremists blew up a governmentbuilding in Oklahoma, a fervent voice calls to tell me she haschanged her mind; she does not want her picture taken. The“New Right” in the United States might look her up and findher if she appears in my book. And I understand her fear—things break loose, chaos. Reminiscent of the Third Reich. Itcreeps everywhere.

CHAPTER ONE

INGEBORG HECHT

“The Germans and the Naziswere not synonyms for me”

�

I took a tram from the university area to downtownFreiburg,then walked by well-tended homes outside the Altstadt, the oldpart of the city, a fairly exclusive section in the valley south oftown in the direction of the Black Forest (opposed to the more“light-industrial” parts of Freiburg to the east and north), untilI found Ingeborg Hecht’s building. No sooner had the door toher flat on the top floor opened than FrauHecht was inquiringabout any difficulties encountered with finding her place.During introductions, I discerned immediately that she was aperson accustomed to curiosity seekers and public attention,which is understandable as she is a well-known author. Herspeech was formal and practiced, and she held herself very

44 DIVIDED LIVES

erect, sometimes slightly tilting her head to listen. Her clotheswere tasteful, nothing overdone. Shewore amulticoloredwoolskirt, a black shirt with a light-gray turtleneck peekingthrough, and a red wool cardigan in an Austrian style. Herglasses on a gold chain lay elegantly like a necklace over hershirt and capped the conservatism of her dress. She wore nojewelry. Her eyes, which one can see more clearly in photo-graphs, are, like her past, sunken; she would only revealshadows of her life, through stories she had written down orlater had permitted to surface. Her red-lipsticked, poutymouth always slightly smirking, and her thick, beautifullycoifed brunette hair recalled to me the flappers of the 1920s,although her large boned frame did not signify a woman whowas light on her feet, dancing the night away. Her life had notbeen one of constant frivolity. Her apartment was clutteredtop to bottom with books, papers, and knickknacks that madethe air feel dusty. While pointing out the small rooms in herplace, she casually mentioned that her mother was never agood housekeeper but was a good person. This apartment washomier, more lived-in, than any other of the women I hadvisited. Books were stashed haphazardly in bookshelves—astereotypical writer’s or professor’s dwelling.

Hecht’s cordiality was undeniable. We sat in her unlitliving room, which looked like a nineteenth-century Englishparlor, in pulpy chairs surrounding an oblong cherry tableadorned with Bahlsen chocolate-covered butter cookies,strong, somewhat tasteless tea, and Stollen, fruitcake. In 1939,the first year of the war, Hecht wrote in her first book, “Tome, tea was not only conversationally stimulating but some-thing akin to an elixir of life.”1 She conversed about teas duringthe interview. The Stollen, she said, was not richtiger, authentic;perhaps it was not the best, but it still had raisins and nuts init. I mention her concern about proper food as it points (asother things did) to her bourgeois upbringing. Hecht was

Ingeborg Hecht 45

somewhat incapacitatedwith a bad hip. She sat on a davenportwith her back supported against a special electric pad.

Hecht was characteristically reserved, pleasant, slow toreveal, protective of her inner self; she displayed a no-nonsenseattitude. She gave me her newest hardback book in German; itcenters on her phobia, which kept her a prisoner in her homefor nearly thirty years, from 1957 to 1983. Psychologist LouiseKaplan writes, “Not until the late 1970s, when therapists whowere treating children of survivors began to share their expe-riences, did we begin to grasp the meaning of the events thattranspired in our consulting rooms. The most common symp-tom among children and adults we encounteredwere phobias.”For adults it was “agoraphobia, a terror of leaving the house orwalking in the streets.”2 During her life, Hecht had sufferedincredible losses—her father had beenmurdered inAuschwitz,her husband and mother died relatively young, and her onlychild died from a brain tumor. Psychiatrists informed her thatthe process of writing her first book, Invisible Walls: A German

Family under theNuremberg Laws, resulted in hermental recoveryand inspired her second book. She was able to go outsideaccompanied by friends.

Although Hecht’s father perished in Auschwitz, some-where in Hecht’s mind he had been a survivor. Her brothermore strongly believed this. Hecht reported that her brotherstood at incoming train ramps and bus stops waiting for hisfather to return. Although Hecht overcame her phobia and isable to talk about her life, her nightmares have not lessened inintensity. Hecht mentioned that she often associates presentevents with the past. Kaplan claims this connotes a childsurvivor’s need to live with a lost parent, to not fully be presentin her own time. Although Hecht mentions her father, it isalways in passing. It seems she has elided the emotional aspectsof her past, sometimes, necessarily, placing herself outside ofwhat happened to her personally.

46 DIVIDED LIVES

Hechtmentioned an upcomingHamburg book promotioninMay of 1995. She invited me to breakfast at the “bohemian”Hotel Pension amNonnenstiegwhere she stays on theAlsterLake.Although she claims not to be an artist, she said that mainlywriters and artists frequent this hotel. During our interview,she passed over or dismissed any feminist questions. Sherepeatedly stressed her lack of education—that she hadnone—but that her husband taught her much, even how towrite better. She writes what she can recount factually, butshe cannot describe anything poetically. She claims her workis not literature. Hecht believes she is a “sort-of historian”(more so than an artist) but only an amateur. When askedquestions, she often deferred to her book: “I wrote that in myforeword.” If she did not want to elaborate on a topic, or ifthere was a possibility of contradicting herself, she wouldrepeat “it’s in my book.”

It is necessary to discussHecht’s first book, InvisibleWalls,

as mostMischlinge refer to it and Hecht can be seen as a majorspokesperson for this group. In the beginning of that bookHecht sets up the maternal and paternal family interrelationsthat later sway or collapse under the onus of the Third Reich.Felix, Hecht’s father, was born to Jakob Hecht and HannaCalmann in 1883. He was the oldest of five children. Becausehe was Jewish, he was transported to Theresienstadt (a workcamp) and purportedly murdered in Auschwitz. Her maternalgrandparents, Friedrich von Sillich and Fredegonde Ossen-kamp, had Edith, Hecht’s mother, in 1900. They were Protes-tant. Both grandfathers died in 1918.

The Hechts owned an antique shop, Rembrandthaus, inthe Colonnades at Hamburg that the von Sillichs, who werecollectors of pewter, frequented. Felix, the proprietor’s son,helped Edith with her homework. Despite the sixteen yearsage difference, Felix proposed marriage in 1919, shortlybefore Edith finished her nurse’s training. They could notfathom that later their marriage would be labeled a “privi-

Ingeborg Hecht 47

leged mixed marriage.” Edith and Felix married on May 25,1920.

On April 1, 1921, Ingeborg was born in a private clinicowned by Adolf Calmann, her grandmother’s brother. OnNovember 11, 1923, her brother, Wolfgang, was born.Although they had a normal childhood for a while and played“cowboys and Indians” while growing up, it was not longbefore the Nuremberg Laws were created for the “protectionof German blood and honor.” Ingeborg and her brother laterwould be stamped as “half-breeds of the first degree,” and beforcibly divorced from their German heritage.

Hecht had a close friend, “little Inge,” whose mother hadconverted to Judaism when she married, so Inge was aGeltungsjude: “a Nazi neologism implying that [one was]technically and formally Jewish.”3 Both Hecht and “littleInge” had been baptized in 1938. Hecht writes, “We existedin a peculiar limbo, torn between fear, suspense, and curios-ity. How else could we have endured life, if not as studentsof the world around us?”4

Her book situates her on “the greatGermans” side, a rarityto the point ofmyth. ShementionsFrauFlügge,who sacrificedsecurity to help the Jews, “like other courageous Germans.”5

She mentions the ones who risked their lives rather thandwelling on those ordinary Germans who stood by passivelyand watched. Dreams were lost, but for Hecht, she was aHamburger first and foremost; she felt protected in her city.She said, “Itwas only later that I grasped howmuch Imanagedto endure for twelve long years, though always buoyed up bya feeling of happiness that I lived in Hamburg. I never wishedto be anyone or anything else—not even ‘Aryan.’”6

In her book, Hecht discusses deportations, in particular,to Theresienstadt. Three other interviewees—Ruth Wilm-schen, Margot Wetzel, and Ursula Bosselmann—watchedhelplessly as their mothers were deported there. Hecht knowsher father was sent to this “work camp,” but she does not delve

48 DIVIDED LIVES

into her father’s death in the book, as it must have occurredon the way to or in Auschwitz. She says, “How people woundup in Theresienstadt, which was Hitler’s attempt to convinceforeigners of his humanity, and how they ‘lived,’ vegetated,and died there, is amacabre theme in its own right. Therewereno gas chambers, just starvation and disease and harassmentin all its infinitely humiliating forms. For most of the inhabit-ants, Theresienstadt was a wretched transit camp on the roadto extermination.”7 Hecht, as did Wilmschen and Wecker,discusses the Jewish people at a home who are gathered upon the pretense of being moved to a better place. Hecht says,“Aunt Jenny and the other old ladies from her home wereassigned to a batch of deportees who never arrived. It latertranspired that, in many cases, ‘gassing vans’ were summarilyput to work en route.”8 There was a promise of a home forthese people when they arrived at Theresienstadt, which was,of course, a lie.Deedswere collected fromJews, but no housesexisted. Jews had to give up their furs andwoolens supposedlyto keep the soldiers warm. In truth, ordinary Germans—the“Aryans”—received them.

In 1940 Hecht’s mother was imprisoned for visiting herJewish husband, which was forbidden. Hecht describes whatshe said to the Hamburg Reparations Office in September1961, “in support of a (rejected) claim for compensation.”9

Imagine being rejected after having been persecuted and stillloving your city. For Hecht, though, only those who were inconcentration camps really have a reason for continued Hass,

hate. She writes,

I began by describing the world in which my mother grew

up. During her three weeks in custody—over which I

prefer to draw a veil—she began to feel as if her childhood

were only a dream. The two worlds seemed so utterly

incompatible. “That first day,” she said, “I met the kinds

of girls I’d never come up against before . . .” / “Whores,

Ingeborg Hecht 49

you mean?”/ She was relieved that I’d absolved her from

saying the word. It had never passed her lips before, any

more than the girls themselves had formed part of her

social environment.10

Her mother mentions how kind these women were to her—how any “humane gesture in inhumane surroundings” wasappreciated.11 Those, such as Primo Levi, who were inconcentration camps, made a similar statement. One can notcategorize horrors, but her mother’s imprisonment can notbe read in the same way as we read an Auschwitz survivorstory. However, someone who is a political prisoner is morefamiliar to the American experience—it is an occurrence thatcan be envisioned—but internment in camps for “racialimperfection” is a picture one cannot conjure up, let alonebelieve, when reading about it. Some horrors are onlypartially visualized because to encircle the totality of thenightmare is too much for the human heart and mind. In ourcountry, it is always harder formost people to empathize withthe already privileged.

Hecht’s father pondered emigration to Honduras andShanghai. His lawyer friends had left, and his partnercommitted suicide. He did not have the capital to emigrate,and felt that he could not reestablish himself elsewhere.Hecht writes, “Doctors could make a fresh start abroadwithout too much difficulty, whereas lawyers had no suchprofessional prospects.”12 “‘What on earth could I do in aChinese city?’ my father protested, and he had a point.Whatcould a Hamburg attorney have done in the Far East, in acity that had been occupied by Japan, an Axis power, sinceits seizure from the Chinese in 1937?”13 Privilege allowschoosiness of where to emigrate. Many people just emi-grated anywhere they could to escape degradation andpersecution. They did not ask where they would end upwhen they climbed aboard a boat. It did not matter. If you

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have little to lose, should it matter to what foreign land youset out? The privilege of choice. Hecht’s relatives did leavefor Shanghai in 1940. She writes: “The emigrants weredepressed, dispirited, and filled with premature homesick-ness. Our family had, after all, lived on the banks of the Elbefor two generations. Besides, we all dreaded that someterrible hitchmight occur at the last moment, because it wentwithout saying that the permits and papers had to beexamined yet again by some official of forbidding mien.”14

Hecht’s family experiences parallel those of my grand-mother Herta Bahlsen Cohn’s, although my grandmothertalked about freedom, getting away, escape. To her it did notmatter that she left behind a fashionable life. My grand-mother simply did what she had to in order to regainfreedom, including leaving Europe, her past, behind. Senti-mentality and rumination can crush life-saving action. IsHecht’s nostalgia proper? It is certainly difficult to ascertainor theorize such ponderous history.

At age twenty, when Hecht was leaving to join her auntand uncle in Shanghai, she discovered she was pregnant. Anillegitimate child was foreign to her mother’s sensibilities, butshe was happy her daughter would remain in Hamburg.Hecht says,” “I’d grown accustomed to expecting nothing,not even consolation.”15 Her daughter’s father was killed inaction at the Russian front in 1944.

Hecht mentions that the tone of her book “appropriateto a memoir of this kind” should “strive to be impersonal andobjective.”16 I thought this objectivity was precisely theproblem with her memoir. She seemed to be missing from it.She wrote her book standing back from the situation, center-ing on specific laws—factual data—that head each chapter.After these headings, she then writes about her family’sspecific predicament. Hecht said to me, “I actually avoidemotions because I think that young people who read this

Ingeborg Hecht 51

want to know facts instead of ‘when I cried.’ For me,however, an ‘I’ is absent.”

Aharon Appelfeld believes that Holocaust testimonieslike Hecht’s “are actually repressions, meant to put eventsin proper chronological order. They are neither introspec-tion nor anything resembling introspection, but rather thecareful weaving together of many external facts in order toveil the inner truth . . . . nothing but externalization uponexternalization, so that what is within will never berevealed.”17 Many of the interviewees who either knewHecht or had read her books felt likewise, that Hecht stoodback and reported “from a strange distance.”18 The style ofHecht’s book allowed her to submerge the self in objectivity;nevertheless the writing of this largely factual first book waswhat cured her illness. Perhaps the only way to write aboutatrocities—in this case, racially motivated atrocities—is todistance oneself from the events. By doing so Hecht canspeak in classrooms and pass on her stories to youngergenerations. Objectivity saves her from falling into the starkrealities of her text. Hecht is one of the few interviewees whohas buried or “stripped down” her split identity—has pre-sented herself as “wholly there, wholly German.” Hecht’s“factual fiction” of herself as German author, lecturer, andcelebrity at times transcends the memories of her former selfas an outsider, a Jew, a murdered father’s daughter. Inessence, she has skillfully cozened herself and her listeners.It seems the return to her childhood city, Hamburg, afterdecades of absence, was one of the catalysts for the phobiacessation, in addition to her writing of the book. In theinterview she stressed her struggle with whether to accepta lecture invitation to Hamburg. Her deep love for herhometown combined with her desire to encounter herhistory gave her the courage to leave her house and travelto Hamburg. To observers, her exile inside Germany con-

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tinues; as former victim, she lives within the remnants of thepast on a fissured foundation.

� � �

I have had many visitors, especially ten years ago. However, fun is notthe right word for it. I’m very thankful and happy that the response tomy books has been so great. It’s a difficult topic. I want to tell peoplesomething. People who emigrated from Germany or who lived inAmerica couldn’t talk about it. And the children in America don’t knowand can’t speak German.

My first book was published ten years ago. An English translationappeared in America—Invisible Walls. Furthermore, the book has beenpublished in France and Denmark, and sold out rapidly because manypeople are interested in history. But it was very difficult to get goodsources [historical data]. My book was dramatized in 1988 and 1989in a youth theater in Karlsruhe and in Freiburg for a guest production,and in Hamburg, 1988. In these performances the final scenes with thefather have been the most horrible for me. In Hamburg a class in theJahnschule [a high school] tried to perform it on its own, but the teacherresponsible for the play left the school. The play will be performed onlyin German because in that language it has such a personal touch.

It is interesting that your grandmother’s maiden name is Bahlsen,like the cookies. [I explain my family was part of the cookie business,even though my maternal great-grandfather did not want to be in thebusiness. She laughs.] Bahlsen, like the cookies! A Bahlsen edited myhusband’s first book, Saturnische Erde, about Italians, who said “end ofcookies—we start culture.”19 This was Bahlsen’s catch-phrase when hefirst founded his publishing house—it actually was his advertising slogan.And you are also Bahlsen.

[Signs her first book] I’d like to sign only my name. I have alreadysigned thirty books this morning at the school. I must take thirty bookswith me to each school. If I wrote more than my name, my hand wouldfall off. I have five binders full of letters, all beautiful letters, about my

Ingeborg Hecht 53

first book and a package of positive reviews. Because the reviews of myfirst book were so positive, I decided to write a second book, Von derHeilsamkeit des Erinnerns.20 There are only a few books about “mixedmarriages” in Hamburg. It started with Ralph Giordano’sDie Bertinis 21

so I asked him to write the preface to my first book, and we are nowfriends. Some well-known “mixed” children are Inge Meysel (veryfamous, even now she shows up often on TV), Dr. Ursula Randt,IngeHutton,22 and Ida Ehre, the actress. Not only an actress but also atheater director—very big. She wore many hats. I know Ursula Gauppin America and a school friend—no—she’s a “full Jew”—in England.You have a long list to get through, but are there really that many halbes[half Jews] in Hamburg?23 I got the book Die Sondergesetze gegen dieJuden 24 (The Special Laws against the Jews) compiled by Professor JosephWalk in Jerusalem, as a gift. I received a letter from Professor Walk in1985 thankingme for using his material. In 1990wemet for tea. I pickedup the book in 1981; it contains all the Nuremberg Laws, and I got theidea to describe the Jewish life in “the mirror of the laws.”

Whenever I read a law, I recoveredmymemory as to how it appliedto me. Before I got Walk’s book, I didn’t have an idea how to do it.When I read Die Bertinis I realized no one knew about the “half Jews”and their lives. I explained the relation between these laws and everydaylife. I think that this was a fantastic idea, pure chance, and the key tothe success of my book. First, I realized from Giordano’s Die Bertinisthat people didn’t know anything about “mixedmarriages.” So I startedto write my book only for myself and my family without any order. Ican describe my state as writing and living in a trance for four months.Later a friend, Heinz Knobloch, a lecturer in Freiburg, who formerlyworked for Hoffmann and Campe, a Hamburg publishing house, readthe book and said he’d talk to this publisher about publishing my book.I felt lucky and thankful that they would have it, as they had edited allof Heinrich Heine’s books. Although I had been writing for Herder[another publisher] in Freiburg, and they would have published mybook immediately, I wanted to be published by Hoffman and Campe.Before the book was published, in 1983, the publicist, Wolf Brümmel,wanted me to come to Hamburg to do a presentation and attend a large

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festival and prepublication party. There was unending press coverage.Shortly after my marriage in 1948, around 1951, I started to sufferfrom a phobia that kept me housebound for over thirty years. I couldn’ttravel more than thirty kilometers without having a panic attack. Ididn’t go far on the street. I didn’t know at the time what caused thephobia. So I was actually unable to go to Hamburg. I told them Icouldn’t do a presentation. But a friend, Margot, a physical therapist,invitedme to ride in her van, a VWbus furnished like a little apartment.She reassured me: “We’ll cover the windows with curtains, and if thereis a traffic jam, we can make tea.” On February 14, 1984, I left myshelter after thirty-three years. My legs shook all the way to Hamburg.My grandchildren came from Berlin for the prepublication party.Before this, they had only known me as their grandmother enclosed inher apartment.

I wrote in the first chapter of my second book about how every nighton the radio I listened to old seafarers’ songs about homesickness, and Ithought, “I have to go toHamburg once again inmy lifetime.” So I went.I had seven weeks before this presentation when I said I’d do it. I’d hadfears of going out for thirty years. In the first chapter of my second bookI wrote how the psychiatrists later found out that the writing process ofthis first book resulted in my mental recovery. I was given a second lifethrough writing the book. And the more I gave presentations, thestronger I became. From then on I have been able to go outside in thecompany of friends. Nowadays I am often invited to “psychiatry grandrounds” [Visite ] to talk about my case. These are held in the medicalcommunity and at universities.

In the first year after publication, the first English translation wasedited and my book received the go-ahead to be published in paperback.The second year after publication my work won the Anne-FrankRecognition Award Amsterdam.25 To accept that award, many friendsalso accompanied me in order to deal with my former phobia. I traveledin the same bus, and Frau Hutton came from Hamburg.

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Ingeborg Hecht 55

My feelings about being an outsider in the Third Reich are mixed. Ididn’t feel like an outsider because I had so many friends. The Naziswanted to exclude Jewish people from society and wanted them to beminorities, outsiders. It was their language, not ours. But because I wasaccepted in my circle of friends, I didn’t consider myself an outsider. Mybrother had substantially bigger problems. He was excluded from theHamburg sports club,where he had played soccer. He was fourteen yearsold. This was extremely troublesome for him because he wanted to playsoccer and to hang out with his sports friends. He had many friends inthe Christian community. Also in school he had problems since only two“mixed” children attended his class. He was later forced to move to aJewish school, which only increased his feelings as an outsider as weweren’t Jewish. I was a member of the German-Jewish hiking group, andmy brother was a member of the “non-Aryan” Christian Community.

An example of an outsider was if there were two Jewish students whohave been isolated from the other students or excluded from activities,first they sat on different benches and then they were forced out of theschool. The star characterized Jewish isolation, although I didn’t wear astar and wasn’t called Cohn [She says this with a slight lilt in voice]. Imention these cases of isolation in my second book. The Nazis made mean outsider but I wasn’t with my friends. I didn’t feel like an outsider.The Nazis tried to make me one.

You told me your father was beaten everyday by his Nazi teacher.I ask if he was hit because he was a Jew? Or just because his name wasCohn? I know a student could be beaten for a Jewish-sounding nameespecially if the teacher was a Nazi. That’s also stated in The Bertinis.Have you readThe Bertinis?RalphGiordano was in Johanneum26 [boys’school] and was handled badly but not hit. That didn’t happen in aGymnasium [college prep school]. I can’t imagine where your fatherwas in school. Do you know where? Was that a Volksschule [elementaryschool]? If so, at that time, they hit students anyway; it was common.But in a Gymnasium students were not hit. Ralph Giordano encoun-tered similar debacles—but from words—when he attended Johan-neum. The teacher stood over his shoulder. Ralph was so nervous hecouldn’t write essays or solve math problems. That didn’t happen to

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me. The torment was subtle. In my school, there were many Jewishstudents.

� � �

I wrote about religion in my book. Now, I am not religious at all. In1938 a Protestant pastor baptized me and Inge Hutton so that I did nothave to wear the Jewish star. For this reason, I thank the Protestantchurch and would never leave the church. But I am not religious, neitherChristian nor Jewish. Since 1946,Woche der Brüderlichkeit [BrotherhoodWeek] has been celebrated in Hamburg, and in March 1995 I was askedto become an “honorary member” of the Christian-Jewish communitybecause I concern myself with the dialogue between Christians and Jews.I am very happy about this honor. But I am not religious.

I have no trouble with the Jewish or Christian communities. Myrelations are just human, not religious. I have written a requiem for threevoices to be performed for the annual meeting, the ninth of November,in memory of a fire that burned Freiburg’s synagogue. They read thenames of those who perished in the fire. The writer Lotte Paepcke, whoalso lived in Freiburg but now resides in a retirement home in Karlsruhe,is also involved. On March 6 she’s invited to speak. Lotte Paepcke haswritten a book about her Jewish father who owned a leather shop.27 Lotteand I have differing perceptions. Lotte Paepcke’s opinion is: “Nothingcan become good again.” I disagree. I can’t be that sad all of the time,and it’s not good for the schoolchildren in particular. Of course thesetimes were horrible, but we can’t alter it anymore. We have to talk aboutit—that’s important. As long as we witnesses of that time are alive, weare happy to be invited to the schools.

When I visit schools, I give a kind of “cross-section” of my entirelife so that the students will know more about my life.28 I cover from1933 until the time it was clear my father wouldn’t come back. I talk forforty-five minutes. Afterward, I am very pleased to answer their ques-tions. Furthermore, I tell the students this is not onlymy life but also thelife of many Jewish and “mixed” children during that time; many

Ingeborg Hecht 57

children had similar experiences. Our children now have no clue aboutthe time of the Third Reich. Americans also, but that’s not so important.Even their [German] parents didn’t have history lessons about the period1933 to1945. The schools only taught up to Bismarck’s empire.Sometimes the lessons dealt with the Weimar Republic, but usually thewhole twentieth century was excluded, unless students were personallyinterested in this time. In the second book, I’ve included my talks tochildren.

It is very important for students today to get to know their history andto know arguments against the neofascism that is developing. It’s not thatthey’re guilty but they need to knowwhat happened. I am a witness of thistime and try to give perceptions and facts to the students. Many of themread my book and other literature. For inquiring students, the Landeszen-trale für politische Bildung [main office for political education] provides allkinds of literature about concentration camps, Mischlinge, and immigra-tion. This historical data has been published only for ten years. In 1979many young people watched the documentary-type movie Holocaust.29

Thismovie caused an “awakening” for young people; theywanted to knowwhat was going on. They went home and asked, “What happened in theThird Reich?” This started a wave of curiosity.Often the grandparents haddifficulties answering thequestions, or theydidn’twant todiscuss this topicat all. We mustn’t hide our history; we have to talk about it. It is notnecessary to bring up many statistics, six million or so; destinies of singleindividuals are crucial. That’s why I have visited the same schools formanyyears, in order to tell class after class my history.Many of the school classeswillingly travel to Auschwitz.

I have been invited toAmerica, butmy phobia doesn’t cease for flying.I can go outside but can’t walk long. I can go by car and train, but not byplane. In Freiburg I go alone by taxi everywhere in the town. I feel insecurebecause of my physical problems; before that it was just mental. I havemany friends, who watch over me, although I have problems with my legsnow as well. Soon I’ll have to have a back operation.

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I didn’t set out to be a writer. When I was a child I wanted to become alawyer like my father. That’s what all kids do, right? Later I chose theprofession of a journalist, but the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Hamburg’sdaily newspaper, couldn’t hire me because of my “half-Jewish” origin.After 1945 I started to write. I haven’t studied anything at all. I neverhad any higher education, did not go to college, and then I was sick. Ihave absolutely never been a student. All of my books are on one shelf.There are lots of histories of places, Ortsgeschichte. I never acquired aprofession as I was not allowed to attend a college, and after the war Istarted suffering from thismental disease. Although I have been ill, I havewritten many books; for instance, stories of villages. Since 1965 themayors of the villages have been visiting me in order to convince me towrite chronicles.

� � �

The father of my daughter Barbara, Hans, and I did not get a license toget married because I had no Ariernachweis, proof of being “Aryan.” Myfiancé wanted to marry me but he was sent to the Russian front insteadand had to suffer so much for my sake. Also, because of the way the waron that front was fought, he wrote to me that he would rather not comeback from the war at all. He saw Barbara once on a visit to Hamburg. Hedied during battle at Lepel on the Russian front, June 29, 1944. To havean illegitimate child at that timewas quite unthinkable in bourgeois circles.Because of my pregnancy I didn’t go to China but stayed inGermany, andthat was—for my mother’s sake—still better than the shame to be anunwed mother. I got to know my husband, Hanns Studniczka, in 1947and married in 1948. My husband had read Hitler’s Mein Kampfbefore1933 and was able to speak many languages. He worked as a youngdiplomat at Amt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten [Foreign Ministry].30

The German government ordered him to go to Italy as an ambassador. Hedidn’t want to work for the Nazis so he went to see a doctor and finagledhis retirement “due to health reasons.” He definitely was not a Nazisympathizer. His role was a public prosecutor. My husband lived with me

Ingeborg Hecht 59

bravely for thirty years even though I was very ill and he had thought,because he was thirty years older, he would have married a young, healthywoman. He had to care for me, rather than vice versa. He wrote his bookabout Italy, and Herr Bahlsen immediately published it.

It’s not possible to have favorite stories in my book. Everything isimportant from a to z. Especially the pictures of Barbara, my daughter,and my father. This picture shows Barbara and another shows my fathershortly before he was deported.With the other publishing house we didn’thave photographs. It is a specialty of this publishing house to include oldfamily photos. What I’ve written about my father I didn’t know in thepast. My father was Jewish. I couldn’t write about my father because hecouldn’t seemy child; hewasn’t allowed to seemymother either. Althoughthey were divorced and did not remarry, it did happen that they remainedclose. The most important things I’ve written were about my father. Doyou remember reading that? Because my father couldn’t see my mother,he also couldn’t see Barbara, who was living with my mother.

What the students ask me in the schools is interesting to me. Oftenthey ask private things. For example, “What happened to Barbara?”Unfortunately, Barbara died in 1977 within forty-eight hours due to ananeurysm. This has been das I-Tüpfelchen [the one negative spot]31 of mydestiny. They always ask about Barbara. Other questions refer to myrelationship to Germans and Nazis, whereas I distinguish between Ger-mans andNazis.The Germans and the Nazis were not synonyms for me. Youhave to be predisposed to hate. Although I always keep inmind themurderof my father, I cannot hate people because I don’t know who exactly didit. So, I will always be in despair and ask how this could have becomepossible. Among the people of my generation there will always exist afeeling of lähmender Schrecken [paralyzed terror]. Do I need to translate?

I know a woman who survived Auschwitz; her name is EstherBejarano. It is obvious why she might hate! [Esther had mentioned shethinks that it wasn’t as terrible for Mischlinge as for “full Jews.”] Thecruelty was “a German thing.” Naturally, when one is in a camp as shewas, I agree. She is Jewish, not a Mischling. That is something else.Understandably she must hate, but she can’t hate the young Germans.The Nazis, naturally. She also speaks at schools. I got to know her

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personally three years ago when the Wannsee Museum was opened inBerlin. Esther is also a little on the left—more alternative in her politics.She was in a camp; she can’t do anything else but hate. She saw suchhorrible things, no? She belonged to the girl’s orchestra in Auschwitz.Crazy! I did not experience the camps. I cannot judge her right to hate.I never wore her shoes. I simply choose not to hate.

It was fortunate that I didn’t have to go into a concentration camp. Itwas by chance that I wasn’t in one. It’s been fifty years ago, 1995, onFebruary 8, that there was an air raid on my village, Staufen. At that time,I was staying in the hospital in order to undergo a serious operation. I cameback to Staufen on the tenth. They had let me go earlier because of the airraid, and there wasn’t enough room in the hospital because of somany sickand wounded. I couldn’t walk. Two days after I was discharged from thehospital, we heard boots on the stairs. My mother was there with Barbaraand leaned against the wall in fear, remembering her time in the prison. Aman from the Lörrach’s Gestapo came and wanted to take me to a poisongas factory in Kassel [for mandatory forced labor]. He saw my conditionand said he would be back. I told him I was “half Aryan,” from a privilegedmixed marriage. He gave me an unforgettable look and said, “Half Jewishyou mean, and that’s as good as Jewish. Jews and Negroes, they’re all thesame to me.”32 Fortunately, the Gestapo offices had no desire to takeanybody who couldn’t stand upright. They were also probably busydestroying their files. Thank God! For this reason, I stayed at home andshould have gone to the Gestapo three weeks later, as the Gestapo officerhad ordered, but after three weeks the French army had already marchedinto this area. This was a big Zufall—how do you translate Zufall?—“coincidence”—and spectacular luck.

� � �

Cynthia. How are things between you and your father? Do you have afather? Do you like your father? Imagine then you find out your fatherhas been killed by gas in Auschwitz. Can you imagine this always in yourdreams? You can’t formulate, let alone explain, the desperation, but it’s

Ingeborg Hecht 61

always there. I have always had the vision ofmy father having to suffocatelike a rat just because very primitive people ordered it. This horriblepicture appears night and day. Because of the popularity of my book,editors asked me to review books of similar subject matter. Despite thepsychological ramifications, I wanted to do this. Once an elderly ladyhandedme hermemoir after one ofmy readings. It was about her survivalin Auschwitz, and I had terrible nightmares. I began to hope that myfather never actually had to see the extermination camp, that the SSphysician Mengele33 had not directed him to the gas chambers when hegot off the train. Associations haunt me.

A weird thing happened this morning. I was watching an Americanmovie from 1935 that showed a race between two ships on theMississippiRiver. It was a bit funny. The film is called Full Steam Ahead. One shiphad been loaded with items that were supposed to become part of amuseum. After a while the people on this paddle steamer started to burneverything—these museum pieces like human-size dolls—in order tolighten the ship and to win. I immediately had this vision of the murdersin the Second World War. I switched off the TV and thought, Theywouldn’t have produced amovie like that ten years later. These associationshappen all the time, even if I see goods wagons. I remember these wagonswhen my father was deported to Theresienstadt. My brother, Wolfgang,had hoped that his father would get off the bus returning from Theresien-stadt. He never did. No, we don’t know for sure what happened to myfather. My family doesn’t know exactly. What’s definite is that he neverarrived in the camps because he was older. He was registered on a trainfrom Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. In Jerusalem there is an institutionwhere I was able to identify him. It was unbelievable—the Germans hadwritten it all down from the moment the victims stood on the platforms.

Yesterday I got an invitation from a radio station in Stuttgart becausethey want to perform a radio play for the first time on which I had donesome preliminary work. On Ash Wednesday they wanted to perform it.This radio play is called Die Rampe [the platform], and they want toperform it in a little theater, which is also called The Platform becauseit is an old train station. I called this group and said, “Is it necessary togive it this name?” The leader answered, “Well, the young generation

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does not know how horrible the word Rampe is for the older generation.”It’s a train station with an old platform [but signifies the ramps whereJews stood to board the train for extermination].

We have these associations all the time. I criticize young people whosay without thinking. “Ich habe heute gearbeitet bis zur Vergasung” [todayI have worked to the point of exhaustion].34 That’s a figure of speech.This saying is even used by amiable people. I did a radio show about thissaying called Gedanken zur Gedankenlosigkeit [thoughts about thought-lessness]. This word Vergasung and its horrible meaning, referring to theJews who were gassed in the gas chambers, is not imprinted in theconsciousness of all generations. I said to them, Please don’t say it everagain in my presence, or better yet don’t say it ever again—period.Everyday these associations appear in very polite talk.

I realize some people think words such as vergasen and Vergasungjust haven’t been used for so long that the words are now picked up again,meaning something different.Words that Hitler created have never beenused after 1945. Sometimes I argue with my Jewish friends about“Reichskristallnacht.” Jewish people want to use “Pogromnacht.” I use“Kristallnacht” because it’s a nightmare term for us. These words withReichs as a prefix were also made up by Nazi opponents in order to makefun of the Nazis because they used Reichs in front of every word. Forexample, Veit Harlan, film director, made horrible movies such as JudSüß, a terrible film with his super-super-super “Aryan” Swedish blondwife, Kristina Söderbaum, and in every movie she had to go into thewater.35 That’s why Jewish people called her Reichswasserleiche [nationalwater corpse] in an ironic way, although some Jews think that it wascynical. Hitler twisted the German language quite a bit. For example, aterm like Vaterland [fatherland] was a great word, but we can’t say itanymore because it’s associated with Hitler and the visions he had for aNew World.

Not all of the Germans were Nazis but a lot of Germans were Nazi.I am German, of course. The Nazis were cowards, but I have to confessthat I didn’t do anything about it [take action]. Anxiety is legal but Ididn’t participate in theWeiße Rosemovement against theNazis.36ManyGermans were easily deluded. They got confused by Hitler’s ideas

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because they hadn’t had any political education, except a few, like EstherBejarano, who I mentioned earlier. She lived in a Social Democraticfamily. The origins of anti-Semitism are older than 1933. I believe thatat least lawyers and priests could have done something against Hitler’spower in 1933. But they had a very high respect for authority; theythought that the people had elected Hitler so that’s fine. Many Protes-tants or Catholic people supported Hitler, although some of them werekilled as well. They followed “Gott, Kaiser und Vaterland” [God,emperor, and fatherland]. These priests were religious, but they thoughtthey had to support whoever was the leader. Priests made pacts withHitler without knowing what he would do later.

� � �

Ralph Giordano has previously published a book,Wenn Hitler den Krieggewonnen hätte [if Hitler had won the war], with all the documents aboutHitler’s plans: He wanted to destroy religion, wanted to get rid of priestsand any other people of high position other than the government, andwanted to expand German territory even more. All other nations in theEast would become slaves of Germany. These documents exist that stateHitler will make Eastern Europeans the slaves of Germany.

Some say Hitler became like a god to the Germans. But the term“God” isn’t appropriate in this sense. I am surprised how many peopleneglect or deny their past. If you were listening to Hitler’s speeches orreading the newspapers, you must have realized what kind of jerk hewas. Nowadays people say they didn’t know anything about the politicsand didn’t read the newspapers for lack of time. Trying not to see, torepress, is terrible.

Hitler had charisma and the power of suggestion, but now ourchildren are raisedwith political education, and although there are alwayssome right-wing people who promise everything, there would be enoughopponents today. For forty years now we’ve been living in a perfectdemocracy. In the time of Hitler, the system had been cruel anddegrading. Then the left-wing approach didn’t work with people, either.

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TheCommunist system had ideals but they didn’t work inmany socialistcountries, like the former DDR [German Democratic Republic] or EastGermany. People like Esther want “the third way.” I criticize compari-sons with Hitler and Stalin because many people compare their cruelty.I say to those people that I am talking about Germany, about a countrywith history like Goethe, Schiller, and Beethoven, not about Stalin andRussia. I think people want to be relieved of their history this way. Thatis no exoneration.

� � �

I had no role as a woman years ago, only today. My social role started withthe publication of my book. My role now is fabelhaft, fantastic, and I havebeen awarded the Verdienstmedaille des Landes Baden-Württemberg (amerit medal) from Minister President Teufel in Schloss Ludwigsburgbecause I support the dialogue between young and old people. I got lettersfrom former president Richard v.Weizsäcker in response tomy books, andI am very happy to visit schools and to write books.

I didn’t have any problems as a young woman because I immediatelygot the custody of Barbara. Because Barbara’s father died while fightingfor Germany, I got financial support from the Deutsche Wehrmacht [theGerman army]. There are many examples of Jewish women who hadchildren with “Aryan” fathers who were killed in the war. These Jewishwomen lost their children to the dead father’s family. I had lots of luck.Women have been intellectually discriminated against because two-income families were not allowed. Men had to go to work and womenhad to stay home. But when the men had to fight, the women had toearn money. I worked in an office as secretary first and then I paintedtiles. The topic of emancipation has never been interesting tome becauseeven after 1945 I didn’t have problems with my illegitimate daughter inthe Catholic village Staufen.

� � �

Ingeborg Hecht 65

I never did think about emigrating to the United States because I lovemy homeland and would have become homesick very fast. I have writtenabout the problems of emigration. On one hand, people saved their lives;on the other hand, they had to leave friends and property. In Germanythese people had been businessmen, and in America, they were nobodies.Furchtbar! [Dreadful!]

� � �

I am not an artist. I am a bit of a historian, but an amateur. I have a largelibrary of historical books to look up important dates and events, but Inever learned anything and don’t have a high school degree. When I amwriting books, I talk to historical experts. For example, inmy chapter aboutShanghai emigration, I discussed it with the former ambassador inShanghai. I learned writing frommy husband who was a truly humanistic,super writer. He taught me how to edit. It is especially important todescribe a fact briefly without negatively influencing the contents. I don’tfeel like an artist because I cannot come up with new stories. I am able todescribe stories I know very well. I can do documentation. I couldn’t writea novel. I don’t write with my eyes but my ears. I just describe things Iknow—from talks with people. I think that I am not capable enough todescribe beautiful things like trees in an avenue.The literary critic’s opinionabout my work is: It is not literature. But Americans would think whatI’m doing is literature. It is a very good documentation. For this reason, Ihave not been listed in the book German Literature—History from Past toPresent because my work is not considered literature in Germany. [Poetryis considered literature in Germany.] I called and asked, Why am I notincluded? They said, If you realize other writers are missing as well, give usa call. They included a lot of political writers. Alfred Andersch’s Sansibaroder der letzte Grund,37 a novel that I saw as a play and an opera is literature.I couldn’t write like that.

� � �

66 DIVIDED LIVES

I have described my parents’ divorce in my book. Their divorce didn’tresult from political concerns. They separated as friends because theyrealized that they didn’t get along with each other as a married couple.My mother protected him in our apartment because she found out thatthe Nazis wanted him in the concentration camp. Later they moved intoa smaller flat and got separated. Even when my parents were divorcedthey kept in touch. When my father lost his practice, they triedeverything to get enough money to live. My mother cared not only forus children but also for my friends, like Inge Hutton, because she wasable to listen to anybody’s problems. On the other hand, she was ahorrible housewife. Later she became mentally ill due to three weeks’imprisonment, but she relaxed and recovered while working as a doctor’saide in Badenweiler. All the old people remember her as a very trustfuland trustworthy person.

It is very painful for me to talk about my father because I think thatI am guilty in a way because we didn’t help him enough or didn’t doenough to protect him or to save his life. I don’t like to talk a lot about this.

CHAPTER TWO

INGRID WECKER

“I was a wanderer between the waves,belonging to no one”

�

On my birthday, June 2, 1995, K. Ernst Dohnke, writerand friend, drove me in an old muffler-dragging Opel toMarne, a provincial town comparable to such “close youreyes and you’ll miss it” towns in the Midwest, an hour awayfrom Hamburg. The streets and buildings were somewhatrun down. It was the type of place I pictured most often—probably enhanced by descriptions of German hinterland inAnna Segher’s novel, The Seventh Cross—when thinkingabout pernicious Nazis and where they dwelled. I doubtedanyone of Jewish descent could have survived in a town thissize during the Third Reich. Indeed, many Jews fled thevillage for the city, where they believed anonymity was

68 DIVIDED LIVES

possible, a notion quickly dispelled by the Gestapo’s seem-ingly omniscient thoroughness. In fact, the Gestapo was notthorough at all. They had very few people actually workingfor them. Denunciations by neighbors and workcolleagues—in other words, the collaboration of ordinaryGermans—was what made the Gestapo’s work easier andmade them appear more organized.

We had trouble locating Ingrid’s apartment, counting offnonsequential numbers among a maze of buildings within thisadult-living complex. Finally, IngridWecker, in baggy,muckygray shirt and gray pants, greeted us heartily. She was notinterested in the pretense of “making herself up.” She woresilver glasses that blendedwith her white, baby-fine, blunt-cuthair. Her only extravagances were small silver earrings, anantique silver necklace, and three plain circle rings. Hersimplicity contrasted to her bold artistic endeavors.

Her living area was cramped—a tight living room andkitchen—where we spent our time together. She had a smallbackyard with a distinguished bird feeder. A handmade oakletter opener with “Shalom” and a bird etched at the top layon the table next to me. Her Hamburg friend, UrsulaBehrens-Gottbrath, who had sent me Ingrid’s address withpermission to contact her, had given this delicate gift toIngrid. Ingrid often disappeared behind a curtain into herbedroom from which she brought out an assemblage of herpen-and-ink sketches that depicted mainly deportations butalso ghettos, concentration camps, victims, survivors, the SS,and the Gestapo. One was a sketch of Jews in the Lodzghetto. The Nazis have black faces, colored-in features likethose in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s painting “Street, Dresden”(1907)—their mouths are open like the figure in EdvardMunch’s painting “The Scream” (1893). Ingrid, whose fatherwas “euthanized” by the Nazis, found solace for her father’smurder through her art. From an early age, her father hadencouraged her artistic zeal. Since our initial meeting, her

Ingrid Wecker 69

artwork has continued to frame our dialogue. In 1995 shehad copies made for me of her sketches, and at Christmas1996 I received one of her original handcrafted and paintedChristmas cards, her signature freshly inked in the corner.Many of the women I interviewed connected their lives to methrough some symbolic or real cultural dissemination. All hadbooks that pertained directly to their Third Reich experi-ences; a few books overlapped in their respective collections.They referred, pointed to, or read from these books as “proof”of what they had undergone. They held the words of thesescholars, novelists, and poets in high regard, as if their ownstories could not be believed without the anterior accountsof “authorities”—if these writers had not spoken and beenpublished, where would the women have gained the courageto speak? Some of the women stressed the illustriousness ofGerman culture pre-Hitler, when such icons as Goethe,Schiller, and Rilke made the Germans proud. By reconnect-ing to this preeminent artistic past, these women found a wayto talk about Germany that helped to assuage their mixedfeelings toward their country. As psychologist Louise Kaplanhas stated, “Our cultural attainments, the sentences we utteror sign, our poems, dances, monuments, paintings, sympho-nies, songs, are all a way of refinding and restoring lostdialogues.”1

Ingrid read a great deal from a large scrap book she hadon her lap that contained files of family history and also generalfacts about theThirdReich.As she talked, Ingrid read throughspecific laws that had been pertinent to her life. I was familiarwith the over 400 pieces of anti-Jewish legislation (beginningin 1933), which included particular injunctions for “halfJews.” Ingrid adamantly continued to read and refer back tothem. Because of their importance to her (and, by extension,to all the interviewees), I have listed some of them here. Wecan see more clearly, through this selection, how noxious and,at the same time, how absurd these laws were. Ingrid

70 DIVIDED LIVES

explained, “Here are some selective historical dates of impor-tance to me that I have researched in the archives:”

MAY 9, 1933: All civil servants of Hamburg are ordered not to

buy in Jewish shops and to cancel present accounts

in these shops.

MAY 17, 1933: Drugs that are products from Jewish brands are not

permitted to be prescribed except if there are no

other drugs from “Aryan” brands available.

JUNE 30, 1933: Nazis are not allowed to go to restaurants or cafés

in which Jews appear, the exception being hotels.

AUGUST 17, 1934: Jewish hiking groups are allowed, but they are not

permitted to participate in cross-country sport.

APRIL 4, 1934: Jews are not allowed admission to universities or

higher educational schools. If schools admit non-

Aryan people, then they have to prefer students

who have some “Aryan” blood and can bring the

evidence for that. Children of “Aryan” origin

must not have any disadvantage; they have to be

preferred.

MARCH 13, 1935: Children of “non-Aryan” origin have to be sepa-

rated from other students in the Volksschule [ele-

mentary school]. Jewish schools have to be built.

The directors of the schools have to get statistics in

place about the racial origins of their students in

order to separate the races.

JUNE 11, 1935: Signs that read “Jews not allowed” are to be put

away, made inconspicuous on the main streets

because of the Olympic Games 1936. [People from

all over the world visited Germany and the Nazis

wanted to hide their anti-Semitism. Ironically,

there were Jewish members of the German Olym-

pic team.]

AUGUST 31, 1935: Jewish students are not allowed to receive any

awards.

Ingrid Wecker 71

Ingrid commented, “I was also concerned because I got manysemester awards butmy teacher said, ‘Ms.Riemann, I’m sorry,but you know why you don’t get any.’ One award was DM200-300, and I needed this money badly.”

SEPTEMBER 15, 1935: Law for the protection of German blood and

German honor.

I. Marriages between “Aryan” and Jewish people are not

permitted and present marriages are no longer valid.

II. Extramarital intercourse between Jews and nation-

als of German stock is prohibited.

III. Jews are not allowed to give jobs in their households

to women under the age of forty-five. Old maid

servants could remain.

JULY 13, 1936: Non-Aryan people are not allowed to get any

discount for calls. [Actual law: Concessionary tele-

phone calls for war-blinded veterans will not be

granted to non-Aryans.]

MARCH 24, 1938: Jews are not allowed to go into archives, except if

they want to know something about their family or

to explore Jewish folklore.Within these exceptions,

the archive workers have to pay attention that the

Jews use only those books that are indispensable to

these purposes.

Ingrid said, “This seemed harmless. Then the Jewish lawyerswere not permitted to work anymore.”

AUGUST 17, 1938: Jews who do not have appropriate Jewish first

names listed in the circular dated August 18, 1938,

must secure additional names: “Israel” for all males,

and “Sara” for all females.

NOVEMBER 10, 1938: The concentration camps Dachau, Buchenwald,

and Oranienburg admit 10,000 new prisoners in

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each case. Jews who own guns have to be taken into

protective custody for twenty years.

Ingrid said, “My mother had some honor swords from myfather, but she gave them away because of her fear.”

NOVEMBER 12, 1938: Jews are not allowed to go to the theaters, movies,

or exhibitions, or to use public transportation.

Ingrid said, “As I mentioned, my mother was not allowed togo to the movies.”

Furthermore, the Jews have to pay the money for

restoration of their institutions themselves [after

Reichskristallnacht, the “night of broken glass”].

DECEMBER 12, 1938. All safeguarded prisoners over the age of fifty have

to be released.

Ingrid said, “Some of my relatives like my uncle came back fromDachau but with shaven heads. This was horrible for me to see.”

FEBRUARY 24, 1939: Jews are bound by law to give away their jewels, and

people who get these jewels made of precious metal

or pearls are not allowed to deny taking them.2

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939: [The war had just begun.] Jews are not allowed to

leave their homes after 8:00 P.M., and in summer

after 9:00 P.M.

SEPTEMBER 20, 1939: Jews are not allowed to own radios. This prohibi-

tion is also valid for “Aryan” people who live in

Jewish houses and half-caste people.

Ingrid said, “One of my friends threw his new radio out of thewindow although his friends said, ‘Moritz, don’t do it.’ Lateron he was picked up and taken to a concentration camp.”

Ingrid Wecker 73

OCTOBER 17, 1939: If Jews and “Aryan” people live together in one

apartment complex, Jews are not allowed to take

part in Luftschutzübungen (air raid drills). Reason:

They would take spaces in the air raid shelter and

probably not all “Aryan” people would have the

chance to get in. [Her interpretation of this lawmay

not be entirely accurate.]

SEPTEMBER 1, 1941: From September 15, 1941, it is prohibited for Jews

over the age of six to go out without Judenstern [the

yellow star of David affixed to their clothing]. They

are not allowed to leave their living community

without police permission or to wear medals or any

other decoration. This is not valid for “privileged

mixed marriages.”

Ingrid noted, “If the Aryan part of these ‘mixedmarriages’died, theJewish part could be deported.Mymotherwas afraidof this fact because her husband was already dead.Mymotherdidn’t wear the Judenstern but my grandmother did. They hadstars for everybody and I had to sew press-studs on the jacketsso that they could clip these stars on their coats. These starswere crudely made.”

After going through the laws, Ingrid told me, “I realizedeverything. We no longer had a radio. All big factories hadbeen taken away from Jews, part of Zwangsarisierung, forcedAryanization [stepped-up after Kristallnacht].” Ingridexplained, “Many Jewish families didn’t know anything aboutthese laws. Newspapers published only a few of them.We hadalmost no contact with ‘Aryan’ people after we knew of theselaws, since we didn’t know with what kinds of people we hadto deal, just like having the wrong friends.”

Ingrid was interested in facts,3 but also was a proficientstoryteller, emotionally involved in her past, whose delicate,almost imperceptible voice nearly lulled me to sleep. Shetapered off when we started to eat and shifted her efforts to

74 DIVIDED LIVES

being a gracious hostess. She laid out a spread of food—avariety of fish, breads, cheeses, salad, and coffee. As itneared the time we had to leave, about 2:00 P.M., Ingridgeared up and began talking about her mother’s “deathbedscene.” Her mother started to hallucinate and had delusionsthat apparently came from her Third Reich experiences. Sherelived specific events as she neared her death. I had to turnthe tape recorder back on. Ingrid then started to talk abouther two husbands. The first one, with whom she hadchildren, died. Her first son was born in 1947. She divorcedthe second husband, an alcoholic. Finally, she lived with athird man. They had a house together, but after he died itwas too much upkeep. She spoke briefly about her wealthygreat-grandparents. They had lived in the United States,made money in drugstores, and then returned to Germanyto invest in real estate. She described all of their finery. Shestill possessed the yellow star worn by her grandmother anda menorah.

Ingrid was classified as Jewish because of her Jewishmother, who, through legal routes, managed to shroud herJewish identity. But Ingrid talked primarily about her“Aryan” father and his supposed “craziness.” As she spoke ofher father she looked at a vacant space as if he were standingright there. A sense of admiration and love filled her face, butit lasted only a brief moment. Then she looked away from theghost that occupied the space in the middle of the room. Thecenter of her story is her father’s demise, and she recognizedthe importance of passing on this history. Much of ourconversation continued off tape. Ingridmentioned her brotheras one who “gets by” or is “less affected” by disturbing events.When she asked him his recollections of their shared past, hesaid cynically, “Warum? Schreibst du ein Buch?” (Why? Are youwriting a book?).

On her seventieth birthday she went to Friedrickskoog, asummer resort on the coast of the North Sea, alone. She said

Ingrid Wecker 75

to herself, “Dubist siebzig” (you are seventy). Shewas surprisedby suddenly being this age because her mother had believedthat all the women in her family died at seventy. Because shelost so much, especially after the war when jobs were scarce,Ingrid said she “wishes for beauty.”

� � �

I was born on August 2, 1924.My father was a lieutenant for the securitypolice in Hamburg. My mother was seventeen years old when theymarried in 1923, the twenty-second of May, when there was highinflation. When my mother was almost nineteen, I was born. Life inHamburg was not without troubles, yet it was very nice. We lived in agrand six-and-one-half-room flat that belonged to my grandmother inthe Grindelallee, which was the border for the Jewish part called KleinJerusalem. I had an “Aryan” father, to repeat this horrible word, butsurprisingly was raised in this big Jewish family.

On my mother’s side, my great-grandfather was German Americanand my great-grandmother, British. They immigrated to America andbought a number of drugstores, which had not developed into very goodbusinesses, in New York, and they worked in these drugstores. Two oftheir children have the nationality of the ship on which they were born.They improved the business of these drugstores and sold them for aprofit. Afterward they went back to Germany and bought large apart-ment complexes on Schmuckstraße. Chinese people with laundromatsoften lived in the basements of these houses. At that time, it was a verygood area where salespeople and doctors lived.

Before the First World War, my great-grandparents were very rich,and every son got $1,000 for a trousseau. Most of them went back toAmerica. The daughters got a huge red salon, a red dining room with atable for twenty-four persons, specially handmade by a joiner. Thedaughters had to attend a private school at Paulinenplatz and learnedFrench. They obviously didn’t take English because they spoke it at home

76 DIVIDED LIVES

in a horrible way. They learned how to play the piano and how toembroider. After this private school, they went to a marriage bureau inorder to get a husband. The family owned lots of silver from Englandand valuable pianos. Everyone had the same silver and piano. Unfortu-nately, they lost all the houses in Germany’s inflation and a tinsmithbought all six “Hirsch houses” für einen Apfel und ein Ei [for an appleand an egg]. Incredibly cheap. Hirsch was my great-grandparents’ name,my grandmother’s parents. My great-grandfather was a bit stingy, butnot my great-grandmother. He didn’t want to spend a lot of money forjewels for his daughters. My great-grandmother was tricky. Every timeher husband counted gold coins on the table, the money for rent at thefirst of the month, she came in with her funny English accent and said,“Oh, Father, please. We must take away the tablecloth—such a goodtablecloth and such dirty money.” Of course, a few pieces of gold alwaysgot stuck on it, but he didn’t notice it. With this money, she bought herdaughters a shawl made of ostrich feathers for going to a ball or dance.My great-grandmother wanted to support street vendors; she boughttheir old and dirty stuff and put it under her bed so that the smell belowher bed was really strange, like rotten apples. She wore a lace hat andblack clothes (over the age of thirty you were considered old and had towear black), and she looked outside of the entrance door to see who rangthe doorbell with the help of a window-mirror in the shape of a butterfly.They were a really funny family.

We, however, didn’t have much money. When my father got hispolice income he ran to the office to check the current value of his salary.My parents wanted to buy a bedroom suite at an auction, but insteadgot a pair of crystal vases and some tins of green peas and beans, andlentils, and bags. That’s all they got for their money. Many women hadto work in this time, too. My great-uncle from New York came toHamburg before my mother’s wedding and gave her ten dollars as a gift.With this money she could buy her bridal dress, shoes, and the meal forall the wedding guests. This Uncle Adolf—he was the oldest—cameagain when I was three years old. He wore a vest and pocket watch. Iremember the smell of a cigar, which he used to smoke all the time, andone day, when he took me on his lap in order to give me a child’s ring

Ingrid Wecker 77

with three little rubies in it as a present, I burned myself on his cigar andscreamed and screamed. I’m sure I staged an enormous drama. Whenanyone had a visitor from America, it was like having a visitor fromParadise. Even as a little girl, I liked to be pretty and was very proud ofmy ring.

[She pulls out a photo album.] My Jewish grandparents were Jakoband Karoline Blumenthal. There were fourteen children at my great-grandmother’s, and I had a steady stream of great-aunts and uncles. Mymother had numerous cousins, and there was always something happen-ing in our apartment. This laufende band [running train of people]occurred frequently. Out of my great-grandmother’s fourteen kids, someare inNewYork. Some of Karoline’s siblings, two of them, and her fatherdied because of Nazi cruelty. My mother had an older sister, Herta, anda very much older brother, Leonhard. My grandfather died when mymother was five years old. My grandmother was alone with the twochildren. To earn some money to make a living she sublet a room in herapartment because there was no insurance, no pension. All the moneymy grandmother had, being raised in a wealthy family, went to pay forher husband’s care. He had a long illness, ten to twelve operations, anddied from stomach cancer. I always had a sense of well-being in my largefamily. We played many games in our childhood; we didn’t have a radio.When one of the fourteen children of my great-grandmother celebrateda birthday, he or she got two pennies and could go to a baker in orderto buy a little piece of cake. Often they went to the baker a week beforethe birthday to choose the cake theywould get a week later. This traditioncontinued. My grandmother told me that I had always been keen ongetting the piece of cake with silver candy. Although it was a very crueltime, I had a nice childhood. But the dissolution of the family after 1933was horrible.

� � �

My father was very proud of me because I discovered very early my talentfor drawing pictures. Besides this, my father taught me three things:

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Don’t lie. Although sometimes we had to lie in order to survive with theNazis. Don’t lose your honor. A typical officer saying. Be helpful to peoplein danger. Always be prepared to speak for those in danger. These threethings I received from my father, and I try to live them. Thesecharacteristics are still a part of me. I could never hate people. I try toteach this to my sons and grandchildren. I have an open ear for everyonein the same way I learned it in my parent’s house. People may drop inwithout calling first, as is sometimes the case here. My children, my twosons, and grandchildren call me from Meldorf, and then they are here.

From talks with my father I realized very early that somethinghappened to frighten the family. My father was a member of an officercorps and told the family stories and made comments a child shouldn’thear. I eavesdropped. Some days he said, “If Hitler comes to power wehope that God would have mercy on us” (Gnade uns Gott! ). This stuckin my ears. “If he comes to power there’s really nothing we can do aboutit, except pray.” He said this again when Hitler was elected chancellor ofthe Third Empire. When Hindenburg said, “Adolf Hitler is our newpresident” my father talked again about God supporting us. This timethe men in the officer corps shut out my father. He was drangsaliert[horribly tormented], because in this corps there were many anti-SemiticNational Socialists. He was really pushed out of this corps, but he hadto state that he would voluntarily leave. I knew my father as a vitallyhealthy sportsman, an athletic man, and a tall man. The official reasonfor his leaving was illness. We would say today what they did to him wasa kind of “mobbing;” everyone improved his position except for myfather, after which he lost his self-confidence. Everybody else was gettinginto higher positions, but nothing happened with my father. He couldstay in the police corps if he divorced his Jewish wife, and this was before1933. He said, “I haven’t thought about that. I would never leave mywife and two children.” At this time, 1928, my brother was born, fouryears younger than I. In 1930 my father left the police. Other menfollowed his example—not because of any racial persecution theyendured but because they were politically discontent. My family ran intothem later; they had become businessmen, such as insurance agents orcustomer service reps, who carried funny briefcases through the streets.

Ingrid Wecker 79

[She laughs.] Nevertheless, they were good fellows, good to talk to. Theyleft the police after 1933 because they were Social Democrats. Myfamily’s political directionwas also left—SPD—SocialDemocratic Partyof Germany. A historical book for Hamburg’s civil servants was pub-lished that reflects exactly my father’s experiences with the NationalSocialists.4

My father had a very small pension. He was actually a forester byprofession and was born in Bielefeld. We bought a house in theLüneburgerHeide, whichwas isolated.My father found a job—one can’tcall it a position—through friends as a private forester for a large huntingarea. This land belonged to the family Luehmann from Harburg. Thisfamily was known for publishing Der Harburger Anzeiger, which iscomparable to the current Axel Springer family’s right-wing publishingcompany. My father got a job in a hunting area and whenever peoplewanted to go hunting, my mother invited them for dinner or to stayovernight—our house was a kind of restaurant/hotel. This was the sourceof the family’s survival. We started to cultivate plants and vegetables ina garden and preserve game, wild meat, in order to sell it to get somemoney. I now hate the sight of wild animal meat.

After 1933 life changed. For example, when I walked the one and ahalf hours to school, I noticed that people in our village cultivatedHitlereichen [“Hitler oaks”], and at the village square they built a flagpolewith a goldenHakenkreuz [swastika], the sign of National Socialism.Myfather was bothered by this display and couldn’t avoid critical words. Hewas not loved in the village, especially among the farmers, because hewas fighting against poaching in the forest. One day my father asked thefarmers: “Why do you have a swastika on your flagpole in addition tothat on the flag?” They said, “If there is no wind, nobody could see theswastika on the flag, so people may believe we are Communists.”[Because it would have been just a red flag, politically opposed to theswastika flag.] My father had a flagpole on his property as well, so hemocked the village people and every Sunday hoisted his black-white-redflag, a conservative, German national flag.5 Because our family’s housewas located on a little hill, people could see this flag very clearly. Myfather did this even after 1933, and the village people were angry about it.

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A “false friend” tried to meddle in the relationship between mymother and father with the help of the “friend’s” wife. My father’s namewas Karl Riemann, but the “friend” called him Karlos, and said, “Karlos,you don’t deserve this. Get divorced from your wife. Schick Sie in denWind [Kick her out] and you can work as a policeman again. You are afaultless civil servant.” In this way my father got into conflicts; he startedarguing with his wife because he was mentally tormented or influencedby these people. My father had a vast array of weapons and guns. I thinkthat my father wanted to kill his own family. He said, “There is no wayout.” Finally my mother decided to return to Hamburg to my grand-mother’s big apartment, and she took us with her.My father stayed alonein this huge house in the Lüneburger Heide.

His “false friend” had no real profession, just a big property, and hiswife sublet rooms to summer guests. Suddenly this man got the idea toleave the village because he wanted to become a nonmedical practitionerin Hamburg; apparently he had problems with his wife. And, indeed, heopened his practice. So this “friend” was begging and imploring myfather to move into his house, which my father finally did. My fatherstayed alone in this friend’s house and neglected himself more and moreuntil he wanted to commit suicide. The mailman realized one day thatmy father’s bicycle was missing. He had told the mailman previously, “Ican’t live without my family. I want to commit suicide.” So the mailmanran into the village and asked the farmers to look for my father. For thisreason, many members of the SA [party security force] started searchingthe forest, but they couldn’t find my father. So, the village sheriff, a bigNazi, gave information to Hamburg’s police, and the following message:“There is a man, a former police officer, who is armed with variousweapons and wants to go to Hamburg to kill his wife and his children!”My mother got this information from the Hamburg police, and police-men picked us children up from the school. That happened in 1935.Mymother wanted the police to leave. She said, “I know my husband verywell. I can deal with him.” My father had suffered from malaria sinceWorld War I and got “malaria seizures” all the time.

The police leftmymother’s house and eventuallymy father did arrive.He was exhausted. Mymother made him dinner and suggested he go into

Ingrid Wecker 81

a hospital for a physical exam because he didn’t feel well. He agreed, butsuddenly the doorbell was ringing. Police! They said, “Mr. Riemann, wehave to take you into protective custody.” But my mother made a fuss,complained about it, so that the police decided to take my father into ahospital formental illness, to the “famous” psychiatrist Bürger-Prinz in theHamburg-EppendorfHospital.6 From thenonhewas “officially”mentallyill. He was incarcerated between 1935 and March 1941 in mental homeslikeFriedrichsberg,Ochsenzoll, and, afterward, hewasmoved toLüneburgwithout any information given to the family.

Because we had to pay for my father’s treatment, the family’sfinancial situation was wretched.Mymother got only RM 35 per monthand an additional support of 1.75Mark per child per month.Mymotherwas not allowed to work. My grandmother could rent the rooms of theapartment only to Jewish people. It was obvious that we were impover-ished, to the point thatmy teacher said, “Ingrid needs a newwinter coat.”It is absolutely absurd, but I got a new winter coat from theWinterhilfe,a group consisting ofNational Socialists who supported only “Nazi kids.”

My mother and I visited my father every weekend in the hospital.Of course, he wanted to escape. Each time he tried to flee, or when hebecame loud—he had an officer’s voice, which is very loud—theymovedhim to a new building with more observation. Finally they brought himinto a house which had only one pathway in the shape of a snail shell. Itwas like a prison with just one little spot to look out. My father becameafraid of “white coats,” and he said to his wife: “Wilma, please go intothe administration building and say to the people there: I want to takemy husband with me. He is not crazy. I will take care of him.” I was tento twelve years old and it broke my heart to see my father “losing hismind,” because he was really tormented. My mother still believed thatmy father was not ill, and I will never forget one day when a heavydoctor—he needed a special chair because he was so overweight—saidto my mother: “Get divorced from this sick guy. You deserve a betterlife.” Even later, members of the Gestapo tried to convince my motherto do the same. [It was not certain if this was just a ruse.]

My father was moved to Lüneburg. From this time on, I couldn’tsee him very often. He began to speak in a strange manner, but he still

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wrote letters to his family. These letters were censored; some parts weremarked out. I remember one letter in which he swears about Hitler:“Wenn ich den Kerl zu fassen kriege, ich drehe ihn das Genick um” [If I cancatch this guy Hitler, I will wring his neck]. It was horrible inside thishospital. When my mother and I visited, the guests had to be in a bighall, and this was a Schlammgrube, muddy patch, because only severelymentally handicapped persons were running around and bothering theguests. One day my father had red boils above his ears. He said, “I haveto cover my ears because they are always talking insistently to me!” Hehadwhite hair at this time andwas only forty-five years old. Furthermore,he said to me, “Ingrid, promise, you will never tell anybody about thefollowing.” “Yes, Papa, I promise.” “I want to set up a new state. In thisstate only people with white eyes are allowed to live there, and you,Ingrid, you have white eyes, you are permitted to live in my state.” I willnever forget this last talk with my father. He always covered his ears andsaid something about Todesstrahlen [death rays]. My mother gave him asweater with a zipper but he completely damaged this zipper and said:“Don’t give this to me anymore. This zipper attracts death rays.” By thistime, he was “out of this world.”

The next time my mother and I wanted to visit him, he haddisappeared. So my mother talked to the director. She only talked todirectors, never to persons below this position, and I too have done thismy whole life. She asked him about my father: “Has he died? Where ishe?” The director answered: “He has been moved out with two otherpeople to an unknown destination.” A fortnight later my mother got aletter from Burg Sonnenstein7 in Pirna near Dresden stating that myfather had suddenly died from a brain swelling, which was infectious.For this reason [the infection], they had to do the cremation immedi-ately; the family could have the urn if they wanted it. But the urn wasnever sent to my mother and me. I called this “sanitarium” in BurgSonnenstein. I did almost everything for my mother because her namewas Jewish: Wilma “Sara”; the Sara added to identify her as Jewish. Awoman on the phone was upset about my calling. Some days later wegot a parcel with the urn and a 0.42 Mark fee. My father is buried at the

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Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. None of our relations appeared andonly one aunt wrote a letter of condolence.

A police officer from the place where my father used to work visitedus. I asked him if my father should get special “honor words” on hisgravestone because of good work for the police. The officer answered:“No way, Miss Riemann, because of your Jewish mother.” I said[laughing], “Oh, I’m sorry. I almost forgot!” At the funeral which mymother, my brother, a Jewish couple who were friends, and I attended,a cemetery worker came with the urn and said, “Mrs. Riemann, wouldyou please confirm that it must be your husband in the urn.” It was soridiculous! My mother had a laughing fit until she started crying.Basically, my father died because of this “Euthanasia Program,” whichkilled many Jewish and non-Jewish people in March 1941. 8

One of my uncles, Leonhard Blumenthal, my mother’s brother, wasinvited on a world trip. A friend from high school days, now a lawyer inHamburg, pushed him to go on the luxury liner Lloyd Triestino, to travelfrom Geneva Italy to Shanghai in 1939. [Shanghai was a Germansettlement for political persecutees.] When another cousin of his wantedto go on board this ship in Geneva,WorldWar II began.My aunt, HertaRodemund, living in a “mixed marriage” with her “Aryan” husband,Felix Rodemund, was a leader of a ballet group, first in Königsberg, thenfor a short period in the Hamburg state opera house, and then back toKönigsberg. Later her husband was pushed out of the Reichskulturkam-mer [Reichs Cultural Chamber].9 I have a letter of my aunt’s and thepaper stating this.He decided to set up his own young girls’ ballet groupand his wife took care of the girls. At one performance each girl said “HeilHitler!” as they left the stage. My aunt told the girls later: “It is enoughif one of you says ‘Heil Hitler.’” One girl finally ran to the Gestapo andbetrayed my aunt. That morning my aunt was picked up by the Gestapoand the same day she was punished by a Sondergericht [special court] toeight months’ imprisonment in Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel prison. My unclehad to finish the ballet group work and from then on was a coffee sellerfor Café Specht in Hamburg. Later he had a bad accident; he rode hisbicycle into a streetcar and had to stay in the hospital. My mother had

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to visit her aunt in the prison. This happened in 1938, a brief time beforeReichskristallnacht.

In these days the government decided on a political amnesty forpeople who were imprisoned up to one year for political reasons. In thisdecisionmy aunt was also involved, but she had to sign a paper that she’dmake every effort to emigrate. Both my aunt and uncle had good luck.They knew a family from Uruguay whose two daughters were educatedas dancers in Hamburg. This family wanted to have their daughters backin Uruguay, so they paid, in addition to their daughter’s, for my aunt’sand uncle’s passage as coaches to Uruguay. This is how my uncle andaunt immigrated to Montevideo with ten Marks in their pocket, and noSpanish, and they had towork on a farm collecting eggs. I can understandhow my uncle, a fantastic dancer, went crazy after two or three years andlater died in a mental hospital. My aunt came back to Germany in 1953,when she had collected enough money for the flight. Even the Jewishcommunity didn’t support her immigration back to Germany. It waseasier to get my uncle Leonhard back from Shanghai in the year 1948,although mymother had to argue with Hamburg’s mayor in order to getthe immigration permission for him. As I mentioned earlier, my motheronly talked to high-positioned people.

In 1942 my mother won a wahnwitziger Prozess [a crazy courtcase]—a lawsuit that was simply crazy—with the result that my motherwas considered “half Jewish.” My grandma died in November 1940. Shewas buried in the Israelische Friedhof, the Jewish cemetery in Hamburg.After my grandmother died, my mother was rather unprotected becausewhen aMischling lost the “Aryan” parent, he was considered Jewish andcould be deported. In her last days, my grandma had the idea that mymother should claim she was the illegitimate child of an “Aryan,”Christian father. In reality, her father was Jewish. After my grandpa diedearly, my grandmother had to rent rooms. One of the renters was a sailor,Captain Fuchs, who became friends with the family. With the help of“witnesses” such as neighbors and friends who gave false oaths, mymother could convince the judge that she was the daughter of CaptainFuchs, although in reality she was about seven years old when Fuchs firstrented a room.Mymother and I then had to go to Kiel, where our bodies

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and skulls were examined for “Aryan” features, and because we looked“Aryan,” the judge decided that we were half and quarter Mischlingerespectively. A remark he made during the process revealed that he didthis knowing we were not. My brother and I were “quarter Jewish”because of our “Aryan” father. That’s why the family was not transportedto the concentration camp, Theresienstadt, where many Jewish peopledied. In March 1945 a superior judge from Leipzig questioned thisdecision. To win time, my mother’s lawyer, a “half Jew” himself, saidthat all paperwork was destroyed during the Hamburg bombing raidsand it would take time to get new papers. Two months later everything[the Third Reich] was over.

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Many of my family’s friends emigrated from Germany before 1933, andI couldn’t understand that because they lost all their property. Later Iunderstood why. These Jewish people were anticipating the danger andleft. Furthermore, after 1933, it was much more expensive to emigratebecause of the high taxes. Before the outbreak of the war, my familywanted to emigrate, but at the office we got only a waiting number. Mymother wanted to go to England to work as a helper-nurse since Englishpeople only gave permission if you had a profession. For her children,she applied to go to Sweden, but it was a mass of papers that they hadto fill out. Besides this, you had to pay a tax [Reichsfluchtsteuer] if youwanted to emigrate. In case you wanted to take something with you, thenyou had to pay at least the new price of the item as tax. Vice versa whenthe Nazis took away Jewish property; the Jews got only a small amountof money or nothing. My mother sold all our furniture in order tosurvive. She had to bring evidence [photos] that this furniture belongedto their apartment. Finally, she got RM 200, almost nothing, foreverything. She sold the golden rings to a jeweler. The rings alsocontained diamonds, but the jeweler destroyed the rings and said, “We’llonly pay you for the gold!” Many fathers went ahead with emigration toset up an existence for the family. In many cases, I know of three, the

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fathers already lived in the foreign country, and their families stayed inGermany and were transported to concentration camps.

During the last days ofWorldWar II mymother protected refugees,AWOL, fleeing soldiers, French and American, in our house andconsidered these soldiers her sons. She said, “These are my sons!”Anything could have happened to her. The English came to us and asked,“Please.” They were all in civil camps, deathly ill in beds, and neededhelp. My mother had her yellow star and said, “I’m Jewish. I’m Jewish.”My brother committed himself to working for prisoners of war andforeign workers. He always stole and smuggled bread to them. In ourapartment in Hamburg we were hiding many factory workers fromforeign countries, for example, Polish Jews. They had come in the fall of1938. The Gestapo continually searched our apartment; they werealmost “at home” there. We had Polish people renting below us. TheGestapo took them away at 4:00 A.M. in a so-called Blitzaktion [roundup]. Many other Poles were caught as well. Even today I am more thanhappy to help somebody in misery, although I close my entrance doortightly because I don’t trust the people in my neighborhood. I am notconfident of them. Only women of my age live here, and I am uncertainabout what they did during the Nazi years. I know now quite a bit aboutsome present neighbors and their Nazi activities. However, if someonehere is sick or in need, I am there immediately.

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I loved my father a lot. Even after the war I had to defend him becauseeverybody, even my own cousin, was saying: “Your father was mes-chugge [Yiddish term for crazy].” The Nazis stamped him with“schizophrenia,” which was considered an inheritable disease, and mymother was always anticipating the day when my brother and I wouldbe sterilized for this reason. Fortunately, it didn’t happen. My fatherhad enormous authority during his police days, which makes it evenmore tragic. Almost all the Hamburg Gestapo members had beentaught and trained by my father. I was a volunteer helper in the Jewish

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community for the entire deportation in Hamburg. I did not wear astar, but I could help in ways a full-Jewish person could not. SometimesI made remarks to the Gestapo, not very harsh, but pointed. If theygrumbled at me and said, “What are you doing here? What’s yourname?” I answered, “Ingrid Riemann.” And they said, “Riemann?Riemann?” “Yes,” I said, “My father was with the police and trainedyou.” They responded, “Oh. Never mind. Continue on.” Then I couldcontinue with my sad job. One day I complained about the fact that ayoung SS man was beating old Jewish women. Their bodies wereshaking with fear all the time. First I spoke to the women and said,“Please don’t shake, don’t cry, try.” Fear, this horrible fear that did notcome quickly or leave quickly. Instead for years people, as Jews, sunkdeeper and deeper until they reached the level of an animal. This fearwas caused by harassment, which had been going on for years. Jewswere not allowed to buy anything in the shops, so the men couldn’tget shaving soap. People developed prejudices and stereotypes, such asJews are dirty, don’t shave, or don’t clean their bodies.

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I couldn’t risk writing a diary before 1945 because the Gestapo, whowere often in our house, could have found it. After the war, I wroteeverything down but not with dates because I’m not sure of them. I’mvery particular about that. I remembered in the form of stories. I’d rathersay I don’t remember any more. Then I can say I’m sorry, I made amistake. Some years ago, my partner in life and some journalists wereshooting a film about the time before 1945. This was a good opportunityto speak the truth about my father. “He was not insane. The Nazis drovehim crazy. It was ein Teufelskreis [a vicious circle].” In addition, Imentioned you could never get out of a mental hospital then and alsothat the Russians used this method of “silent/cruel mental murder” inorder to kill political persecutees.

My mother loved my father very much and knew that he was notcrazy. After the war she sank into bitterness and was angry with people.

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When she applied for the political rehabilitation of her husband, theseresponsible, competent people said: “First you have to bring in theevidence that it was not you who made your husband crazy.” Isn’t thatcruel? This was the most horrible experience for my mother after 1945.For this reason, my mother became more shy and unsociable. She diedin 1982. When she died she was the oldest of her siblings—her sisterdied at seventy; my uncle died at fifty. He suffered from a tropical diseasecaused by his work as a medical assistant in a hospital for immigrants inShanghai. Later he had to stay several months in special hospitals fortropical diseases in Hamburg and died from pneumonia. My aunt diedfrom cancer; many people who had survived the concentration campsdied from cancer some years later.

I talked frequently with my mother about this time so that I am ableto continue the family archives. Later, in many other families, denialpervaded, and they declined to speak about the Third Reich. Germanfamilies didn’t used to talk very much, if at all, about that time. Todaythere are more talks and documentaries about this time because of thefiftieth anniversary of World War II’s end. The older generation didn’ttalk at all before, and now they want to tell everything to the point thatpeople don’t want to listen to them anymore. Talking to children aboutthis topic is another concern. I don’t think anyone should force hischildren to eat with the argument “Eat now and think about how we hadto starve in time of war when we were kids.” War was an exceptionalcondition and today’s children can’t understand that; they take eatingeveryday for granted. I admire young people like you for trying to transferyour minds a little bit back into the time of World War II and to workup Germany’s history. I was born and pushed into this time, but theyouth nowadays know nothing about it

Out of my family’s entire circle of friends, many had to go toconcentration camps. There was a very intense bond between thesefriends. We held together in the Diaspora. My mother, fortunately,didn’t have to go to Theresienstadt. I mentioned to my teacher some-times: “I’m afraid of losing my mother. I expect her to not be at homeanymore when I return from school.” The only comment the teachermade: “Don’t worry. We will provide you with a room to live here.” Of

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course, all teachers were National Socialists. They wanted everybody likeus to go to Theresienstadt. In school I was the best student, but mytranscripts were torn apart. I got worse grades than other students didbecause I was “mixed”—half German, half Jewish. The teacher said,“Especially you, Ingrid, you have to make a stronger effort in school,”although I was the best.

I remember one teacher, Fraulein Schulze—little, heavy, handicraftteacher—who had long hairs that she brought together in a knot on topof her head and wore a big hat. All the students wanted to play a trickon her. I usually didn’t participate in student tricks because I was afraidof the consequences for my mother and me. The students manipulatedthe teacher’s hat, put it back on the desk, and stuffed it with a couple ofpotatoes. They asked me, because I could draw very well, to draw acartoon on the blackboard of this teacher putting on her hat while all thepotatoes fell out. I did it. National Socialism obsessed another teacher,a 180 percent Nazi, which means more than normal. He wanted me tocome into his office after that incident. First he just was swearing. Laterhe slapped me once in the face, and asked me, “You must have put thepotatoes in the hat too, right?” “No,” I said. Then he answered, “This isone example where you can tell the lying of your Jewish people!” I wantedto apologize for this drawing and gave him my hand. He refused it andsaid, “I don’t shake the hand of a Judenschwein [Jewish pig].” This teacherexcluded me from physical education as a punishment, so I had to sit inclass alone when the other students were playing sports.

I was not a member of BDM [league of German girls], although myteacher mentioned, “It’s a pity that you are not ‘Aryan.’ You are excellentin social studies. You could be a wonderful leader in the BundDeutscherMädchen.”10 Many “mixed” children did not go into the Jewishcommunity, and even some of them were big Nazis. For the Nazis it wasvery easy to get rid of somebody; they could claim the slightest infraction,and nobody could bring evidence that it was not true. [The “onus ofproof” was always on the Jews.] One teacher, Frau Gottbrath-Behrens,left the school together with me. She was Catholic. My teacher had thisclass verymuch under control.ManyNazis’ daughters attended this class.It was a part of Oberbau [middle school]. At this time I had to attend

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first, Grundschule/Volksschule,11 secondly, Oberbau (until Mittlere Reife,an exam), and thirdly, Lyzeum for girls or Gymnasium for boys [similarto American sequence: elementary, junior, and senior high]. I attendedthis class three years before I was kicked out, so that my degree was justaVolksschulabschluss, the first step of education. ThisOberbau school waslocated next to EppendorfHospital.My class teacher had a typical Jewishname, Rosenbaum, but he always denied being of Jewish origin. He toldpeople all his relatives had been “Aryan,” that one of his relatives threegenerations before owned a big farm with many Rosenbäumen [rosetrees]. That’s where this name allegedly comes from. My mother metthis class teacher.Mymother said, “Aus dem kannst du drei Judenmachen”[He looks so Jewish you can make three Jews out of him]. I describe himas having a Stürmer-Ponem [face of a little ugly figure].12 These “bigNazis” really suffered from their Jewish appearance. This teacher wore awoolhair cap, and he was very anti-Semitic.

My family celebrated the JewishNew Year andChristmas.My unclewas very religious.He took all the children to the synagogue, for example,the Laubhüttenfest, in Yiddish; Zimpristaure [Ecclesiastic Feast of theTabernacles] because the children got candies and this was the onlyopportunity for getting them. When I was twelve years old, I had to situpstairs. In Jewish synagogue the women have to sit upstairs. It wasLaubhüttenfest as well. We conducted Lulev schütteln, to shake lulev.Lulev is a sacred bundle of twigs from a citrus fruit, a pomegranate treeor bush, a palm branch and a bay leaf that are bound together, and youshake it in front of your body and then swing it across the right, thenacross the left shoulder, while you say a prayer. But it was the first timeI had to deal with this Lulev, so I felt fearful when I saw it arrive in myrow because I didn’t know what to do. This Lulev was passed fromwoman to woman and when it was three women before me suddenly thedivine service finished so that I didn’t get this Lulev. Luckily. I wassweating but happy.

I ammore connected to the Jewish faith. I can’t feel like a Christian.I don’t believe in Jesus Christ. But I know a lot about religion because Ideliberately participated in religion lectures. I made my class teacher,Rosenbaum, very embarrassed when I said, “Jesus Christ is a Jew as well

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because he’s circumcised.” I told him the date of Jesus’ circumcision, andmy teacher was quite upset about that and threatened to excludeme fromthe lessons if I interfered in this manner again. I told this story at homeandmy family was amused. I am a Jew according to the IsraelischeGesetz[Israel Law] because I was born from a Jewish mother. I have never beena member of the Jewish community because if you were registeredanywhere in connection to Jews you were considered Jewish, and theGestapo used, or rather abused, this for their own purposes. I gave birthto my second son in Hamburg’s Jewish hospital and the physician askedme, “Do you want your son to be circumcised?” I said, “No way.” Thedoctor was angry about that and asked me, “Why do you come here inorder to give birth to your son, if you are not following Jewish rules?”

I now go to a very nice general practitioner, Dr. Lafi, who isPalestinian.When I arrive at his practice, we talk aboutGott und dieWelt[God and the world], everything except illness. Dr. Lafi told me that hiswife encounters many problems here in Germany because she wears aheadscarf, usual attire for Muslims. When I told my neighbor, an olderwoman, this story, she said, “Why is she wearing a headscarf? She shouldadapt to wearing a German outfit if she wants to live here.” In my family,which was very religious, almost all women wore wigs since they didn’twant to show any of their headskin. I learned about Jewish culture andChristian culture, but actually I am a heathen, not religious, not baptized.When I want to talk to “my God,” I go to the dike [the dam, which istypical in North Germany] or walk along the mud flats, theWattenmeer[shoals], on the North Sea. God is in nature.

I can tell you a story of my father’s family. They wrote him a letterand asked, “When will your daughter be baptized?” My father’s answer,“I don’t care. My daughter is being baptized everyday in the bathtub.”My parents did not want to force any religion on me. I could decide laterto what religion I wanted to belong. We have never tried to solve ourproblems in a religious way. Many Jews came back from concentrationcamps and said, “We have no God anymore.”

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I was friends with a family, Spiegel,13 who were cruelly murdered. Thefather had been a member, a pilot, of Die Rote Staffel des Barons vonRichthofen [Red Squadron of Baron v. Richthofen] together with the“famous” Hermann Goering, later the official speaker for Adolf Hitler.So the family believed theNazis, because of their father’s former position,would not maltreat them in any way. Unfortunately, they were wrong.The whole family was killed in 1942 or 1943 after he was brutallytortured. The mother was hanged, the father also, although he had beenonly a skeleton anyway, and the two daughters, thirteen and fourteen,were beaten to death with guns. [She is reading from a book.]Mr. Spiegelwas working for HAPAG shipping company in Hamburg and dealt withthe Jews who wanted to emigrate. He helped them considerably. Whenthey could not take their money with them—the Nazis allowed only asmall amount to be taken on the trip—he took the money and gave itto Jews in need. He paid for my Meisterschule [art school]. In Minsk hewas elected Lagerältester, spokesman for the ghetto. The father’s familywas Jewish. He smashed all his awards and medals from former timeswhen the Nazis informed him to leave the country. More evidence of theNazi brutality was the fact that they even, and particularly, killed disabledpeople, old, without legs, blind. People were picked up from AltenheimSeelandstraße [old people’s home in a neighboring street of Grindelalleein Hamburg’s Jewish community] and were taken into concentrationcamps. The Nazis never respected other people’s human rights.

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My social life was lonely. To the Jewish people I was considered aSpitzel, an informer, of the Gestapo, because I looked very “Aryan,”and to the “Aryan” people I was not even considered a human being.That is why I always drew incessantly, and that is what I am doing thesedays as well. Sometimes I didn’t feel like a German at all. I have beenlonely. I was a Wanderer zwischen den Wellen [wanderer between thewaves], belonging to no one. I was lucky to be admitted into the artschool for clothes design shortly before this admission procedure was

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closed to Jews. Sometimes my teacher said, “Ms. Riemann, please avoidyour Jewish colors,” when I started drawing in multicolors, since thestudents wanted to draw in gray, typical for war. My studies were paidfor by the family I mentioned previously who were brutally murdered.Later I was secretly engaged to an Austrian man who described himselfas a “boot of the German,” served in the German army, and died inRussia. He also paid for my studies.

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I am content living in Germany. I have had opportunities to leavebecause my relatives are all over the world. But I married early and mysons were born in 1947 and 1948, and the main reason was mymother,who didn’t want to go anywhere else. My mother raised my childrenas well because my first husband died very early. One of my sons, ClausWecker, works independently in stage work and design for the TVchannel NDR inHamburg. I was married twice. My first husband diedearly. He suffered from juvenile diabetes that he got while buried aliveas a fourteen-year-old boy. [Statistics show that many children sufferedfrom shock diabetes after this experience.] I have always looked for menwho could talk to me about everything. My second husband workedas a captain on a big ship and had known many countries and differentcultures. He was weltgewandt, worldly. But after forty years of being aseaman he didn’t want to do it any more. He had started at age fifteenon the ship Pamir [a highland in Russia], and in Marseilles he had togo ashore because of an accident. He started drinking. One day, whenhe was boozing, he called me and said, “Du Judenschwein” [you Jewishpig]. I immediately wanted a divorce. I didn’t have to stand for that!He married again, at Helgoland because nobody would know about it,and he owns a nice shop in Hamburg. He almost killed his second wifewhile boozing. For this reason, I changed my last name again. I didn’twant any connection to this man anymore. Later I got to know mypartner in life. I had twenty-one wonderful years with him. I’ve neverbeen married for that long.

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Theman I lived with was a Kronprinzenköger.14He sustained severewar injuries and died two years ago from pancreatic cancer. He was avery understanding man who had lived in and known about war. He putinto every child’s hand a book for them to read that informed them aboutdifferent religions in order to make them develop tolerance. I told everyman with whom I used to “hang out” about my history, but the mostaccepting man was the man I lived with most of my life. Two peoplemust have acquired similar experiences in life; otherwise, they don’t getalong with each other. That’s my philosophy. My partner had been amember of a party different from mine after the war but that didn’tmatter. Our common hobbies were fishing and cultivating a garden; ourfavorite color was green, which means environmental protection.

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I left Hamburg after my retirement and after my mother died, since Inever would have left my mother alone. Basically, I and my mother weretogether up to the end of her life, so I could follow how my motherdeveloped bitterness about all these things that happened to her after thewar. For example, the fight for a little pension for her dead husband, DM400. This pension almost never increased, and it was a hard struggle toget his “rehabilitation.” My mother said, “I will tell you, Ingrid, if yourfather would have hanged himself and have written a farewell letter withthe words: ‘I committed suicide because the Nazis forced me to do it,’we would get a pension immediately, but this way nobody believes thathe was killed by the Nazis, and the old Nazi lawyers have maintainedtheir positions in the courts even after the war.”

My mother never received more than DM 500 until the 1970swhen a new law was set up that all former civil servants that had toleave because of political or racial reasons would get a new pension.Then my mother received DM 1,000, which she couldn’t believe.Actually, even DM 1,000 was just a little amount of money comparedto other pensions. For example, my brother’s mother-in-law gets DM3,000, a combination of her own pension, her dead husband’s pension

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from being a teacher in East Prussia, and the pension for the death ofher husband while fighting for Hitler’s army. This woman wasannoying my mother and me very much because she always said, “Idon’t understand. You get so much money, you could buy a house orwhatever you want!” My mother was upset about that and answered,“I’m sorry, but my husband wasn’t a Nazi.”

Even today people think “the Jews will make me poor” because theybelieve Jews received an abundance of reparation money. Only a fewpeople got reparationmoney.My relatives inCaliforniawhoownedhousesin Berlin have never seen any money for those. Also, the house in theLüneburger Heide was gone and given to a “big Nazi,” and our familydidn’t get any money for it. [She smiles.] If mymother would have caughtan American officer after the war and gone to this house with a jeep,probably this Nazi would have given us back the house [simply taking himby surprise], but she never did it. When my father died, the Nazis said,“Now this house is Jewish property and we can take it.” Somymother hadto give up the key to this house. The Nazis made the deal in the best wayfor themselves.Unfortunately, the reparation committee “twisted” the casein their favor. The committee said my mother didn’t need to register thishouse under her name. But obviously, her husband had died so she ownedthe house. My mother never dated or married again because, from herpoint of view, people had disappointed her so much she would never trustanybody again. This is probably due to this whole struggle for the“rehabilitation” of her husband.

I’ll tell you the story of my pension application. Usually those fouryears at the School of Art would be counted for my pension. But thepublic authority denied it, unless I could show transcripts with a degree.I answered that I was not allowed to stay in the degree program becauseI had a Jewish mother. Now the public authority wrote back and said:“Bring the evidence that your mother is Jewish.” Was I upset! I neverthought there would ever be a day that I would have to show evidenceof my Jewish mother because I had to prove all the time that I was of“Aryan” origin. This is horrible! The pension authority never wrote meback and counted these four years formy pension. Basically, people thinkthe same, just with other symptoms.

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The students in my gymnastics class, with whom I chatted, askedme, “Are you afraid that this could happen again?” It was a time inGermany when acts of violence against foreigners were high. Yes, I said,I have this fear that Germany will come under the same conditions asafter World War I and that the politics will fail again. I would like youto search for the reasons whyHitler could establish himself in Germanyand come to power. If you realize and understand these reasons, thenyou will know why I’m afraid of it. But my hope is you. You are young,honest, open-minded, and critical students. If everybody would be likeyou, having her own political opinion and not being influenced by onesingle person, this is my hope. The development in Germany lies inyour hands. If something were to happen, believe me, it would alsoaffect you. There are many “Aryans” who were Catholic or Commu-nists and they say, “After the Jews, the Nazis would have killed us,simply because we didn’t fit into their image of a good German.” I liketo talk to young people. I have spoken on many occasions. Somejournalists and I went to Kleine Jerusalem in Hamburg and they askedme questions. And a group of schoolchildren at a Gymnasium adver-tised for a person who had lived through the Third Reich to come speakto the class after they had read The Diary of Anne Frank. Nobodyvolunteered. I decided to go.

When Ignaz Bubis, head of the Jewish community in Germany, hadbeen invited to a discussion in Hamburg, I thought, “Poor Mr. Bubis, ifyou only knew what ‘brown soup’ you will come across here!” [Brown isa Nazi color.] After Bubis’s speech I went to him wearing my Jewish starand said, “Hello, Mr. Bubis, very nice you could make it, nice to have youhere.” Bubiswas really perplexed andbewildered; he couldn’t say anything.On my way out I asked some young people the reasons why they came tothis discussion.One youngman, a science student inGöttingen, answered,“I wanted to see how a real Jew looks.” He mentioned that in his studieshe never had any contact with historical data or events, so that he had neverhad the chance to learn anything about Jewish families, how they live, etc.[Although it was a vapid answer to Ingrid’s question, it was a responserelated to the one-directional education at the university.] I said, “You arein luck, young man. Mr. Bubis is a male Jew and I am the female pendant

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[accessory] to him.” I gave the right answer. The student apologizedbecause it was embarrassing for him.

There are many culturally valuable works from Jewish, Catholic, orCommunist artists, painters and writers, which have been destroyed orthrown away just because the Nazis didn’t like the characteristics of thesepeople. I think the Jews have made mistakes. For example, their worshipservices have always been Geheimnis krämerei [mystery mongering].Nobody, especially among the fanatic Jews, was allowed to speak aboutthe services. If only they would be more open to other people, thennobody would assume that the Jewish religion is a sect like the Ku KluxKlan. The Jewish “missionaries” always want to convince; they are notvery open to other opinions.15

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At age fifteen, my brother had to serve for Heimatflak16 since he was a“half-caste of the second degree.” My mother said, “If anythinghappens to my son, I will commit suicide. In order to rescue my ownlife, I risk the life of my son.” My mother was stigmatized physicallyand mentally from this war—it was a vicious circle. Here is a pictureof my ballet group, my dogs, the girls’ shirts, and cabarets and playswe performed in Königsberg. My aunt got a higher amount ofreparations because she saved all the bills from the performances. Afterthe war, I worked as a painter, an artist, for the Crusader Club inHamburg for English soldiers. Once they wanted to perform a playabout a king called Richard in their own theater. I don’t recall whatnumber this Richard was. They owned all the materials and clothes,silk and velvet, confiscated from the Rheinland, and they wanted meto help design the dresses for the actors. When we worked together Ismoked my first cigarette—very strong—and I was sick. This wasAugust 1945, a time of great hunger. I drank my first strong beerwithout eating anything beforehand. Talk about high!

We knew many theater people. I knew Ida Ehre [a famous actressin Hamburg] because she was a friend of my cousin’s mother, and Mrs.

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Ehre had been at my family’s home quite often. Also Henny Porten, anactress, was a friend of this family. Henny lived in a “half and half”marriage as well. My uncle worked as an engineer for Draeger-WerkeHamburg and invented the gas mask in World War I. My aunt becameDeutschnational [a party on the extreme right], which was horrible. Shegot baptized and said continuously to my mother, “Nothing can happento me!” My mother answered, “You are almost anti-Semitic, that’s whyyou will always keep being a Jew!” Later my aunt converted her religionagain and went to the Jewish community, at which timemymother said,“You are a care parcel Jew!” My aunt has not been the only “wrong” Jewin the Jewish community. When I wanted to register my mother again,the Jewish community was somehow offended because she hadn’t beena member during the war. After the war, my mother got the designationJew of the first degree. The Jewish community and my mother hadtremendous trouble with each other. I possess many old prayer booksfrom my uncle. I would like to confer them into faithful hands. But Imiss the heart in the present Jewish community, and the old rabbi, Dr.Carlebach, who had been very nice.

Now I live in Marne, and nobody knows where this city is situated.People think it is in France. Often they can associate Brunsbüttel withMarne because a nuclear power station is nearby.Whoever lives inMarnelives a little bit outside of this world. In addition to this, because of myprofession, I have always been an outsider, and I have always said whatI thought. Here in Marne people, especially women, talk considerablyabout others. They meet for coffee and cake, twelve women and fifteencakes, and I am in no mood to go there and join them. That’s why theytalk about me as well. It’s a Klatsch.

I don’t go to church. Many people of my generation or older aredying, so that they have a bunch of funerals every week in Marne.Mostly the buried people are women who survived World War II, buttheir husbands had not. The women who died were eighty to ninetyyears old. The people in Marne didn’t have numerous sorrows becauseonly one bomb was dropped here. This was not as tragic as the manybombs dropped on Hamburg. I show the book Firestorm over Hamburgto all inhabitants of Marne who say, “Oh my God! We didn’t know

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you had bomb alerts in Hamburg even when the war began.” From myperspective, the people of Marne don’t know anything about the warbecause they were not directly affected. When the people in Hamburghad to go into the shelter while bombs were being dropped, my motherand I and other people were intrigued when a bomb hit the earth justbecause we didn’t realize that we could be killed ourselves. We viewedthemmore like fireworks. My mother got a littleWeltempfänger [short-wave radio]. This radio was hidden in a wardrobe. My mother got itfrom a neighbor woman who was very friendly with Jews. We called itGoebbelssäge because it sounded like a saw. My brother drilled someholes in the wood and installed a little receiver. Mainly, we listened toBBC England, but my mother also checked the French news andinvited French war prisoners who worked in the neighbor’s house asjoiners to listen to their news. Mymother always waved a kitchen towelto give them a sign. We realized the danger but we made any effort tohelp others. My mother got increasingly excited about the war ending,but she was afraid to go into the air raid shelter. One day a Nazi womansaid, “What business do you have here?” when my mother wanted toprotect herself in the shelter. For this reason, she wanted to walk towardthe English army, but I held her back and said, “Stay here. Everybodyis throwing bombs and the English low-level planes can’t recognize youas a Jew.” I said around the end of the war, “Am liebsten hätte ich jedenEngländer geknuddelt” [I would have liked to have hugged everyEnglishman].

When my mother died, I didn’t grasp it. I could never imagine herdeath because there was only an eighteen-year age difference betweenus. A brief time before she died, the Jewish hospital wanted her to signup to go into an old folks’ home in Oberaltenallee Finkenau and Ivisited her everyday there. She started to live her life in reverse. Hermental faculties restricted more and more. First, she talked about theair raid shelter and said, “See, Ingrid, there, the Gestapo is observingme.” From her room in the home she could see the former shelter. Latershe got a new room and yelled, “Shut the door, the gas is coming!” Oneday she saw a shadow in her room and said, “See, there in the corneris Hubert [Ingrid’s brother]. The Gestapo has hung him in front of my

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eyes.” I said, “No, Mom, this is a shadow. You are dreaming.” “No,”my mother said, “this is him and I am guilty that they killed him.”Later she fantasized about her time in school, and one day before shedied, she said to me with the voice of a child, “I am sick. I have gotdiphtheria.” It was suspected my mother had diphtheria when she wasa little girl.

My mother was born in the Bornstraße, and attended the Israeli-tische Töchterschule [Israeli daughters’ school]. I have kept books frommy mother’s school time. I enjoyed it when my mother talked aboutschool and displayed her transcripts. She did poorly inHebrew, a five.17

But they had swimming, cooking, French, and English in school. Thedirector of this school at that time, Mr. Alberto Jonas, was deported toAuschwitz. I remember the time when the Nazis wanted to takethousands of Jews to concentration camps. First they deported themen,bolted all apartments tightly, and the womenwere sitting on the streets.Many women stayed in the gym of the Israelitische Töchterschule orat relatives or friends’ homes. Many women were pregnant. Two orthree months later the women were transported, and people believe onthe way to the concentration camps the Nazis killed all the children.Nobody would believe men and women were separately transported,but there is evidence in accordance with death books. I worked in amarket research company for five years as a graphic artist and had todeal with statistics. I checked all dead people and compared their namesand dates of birth, which was important evidence to prove theseseparate transports. The children had almost all been only four weeksold and were killed. [Perhaps four months old?]

After the war, I attained a new life as a gift. I had to learn to lose myshyness. Even now, when I have to go to the financial administrationoffice, or a policeman talks to me, my knees shake because I was used tonot speaking my own opinion in wartime. The sky opened up for mewhen the English army came to Hamburg and finished the war. Later Igot an offer from a magazine called Burda to work as an artist, but I wastoo shy to take this offer. I always had to think about what I would beallowed to say and it was not easy to change this quirk. This lasted untilI was forty-one years old.

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I am fighting against the forgetting. I would like to write about myexperiences, but there’s already so much written. I have read differentbooks, for example, Dr. Starke’s Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt[The Führer gives the Jews a city].18 I knew Dr. Starke’s husbandpersonally. He had a beautiful daughter who was gassed by the Nazis.Dr. Starke’s husband was transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitztogether with an actor, Fritz Bänscher. Fritz rented the apartment belowours in my grandmother’s house and was very amusing. He had a typeof “gallows” humor. That’s why many cabaret artists, such as cabaret starGünther Hagen met at our, the Blumenthals’, home.19 Mr. Starke, whosurvived Auschwitz, told me more stories about Fritz Bänscher later.During one festive evening when they had to perform in Theresienstadt,he said, “My dear people, if you ever go over the JungfernstiegMountainsin Switzerland, don’t forget to take your spoons out of your buttonholes.”They had a habit of carrying valuable objects. Mr. Starke was withBänscher after Auschwitz and finally came to us after the war. Those whosurvived trusted us and told their stories. I experienced all of thisfirsthand. From these survivor stories, which I believe, and with myability to imagine the conditions in the concentration camps because Iam an artist, I have nightmares about it quite often. It was almost alwayswinter when the Jews were transported. I can tell many gruesome talesthat happened in Hamburg, such as in the Logenhaus.20

Suddenly, the people there were denied water because the toiletswere stopped up. I worked as a coffee maker in the community’s home.Fritz Bänscher and I, in our social group, made coffee for them.Somewhere we received a present of coffee in Thermos bottles. And hesaid, “That’s enough. Stop. No more brewing. They aren’t allowed todrink any more.” And that’s the worse thing you can do to a person—not give them anything to drink. Then after two days, without heat,horribly cold weather came. This happened in winters 1941-42 and1942-43. Fritz came to our door and said, “I need a few of those largesoup spoons.” There was a large restaurant kitchen downstairs. Fritzwhispered, “I need them to open the toilets so they can go to thebathroom, give them a chance to get rid of their excrement.” After FritzBänscher survived Auschwitz, he never came back to Germany. He said,

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“Germany no more!” But after years passed, he and many peoplereturned. I myself could have gone to America, but I didn’t. Some of ourrelatives emigrated to the United States before the war. I agree you cango to a foreign country with a clear conscience only if you knowsomething about your history. Everybody has to help ensure that thistime will never be forgotten. It is too simple for young people to say “Wewere born after the war so we don’t have to do anything.” It is the historyof us—of our parents and grandparents.

CHAPTER THREE

RUTH YOST

“I was born completely poisoned”

�

Ruth Yost was my first interview of a Mischling. Sheremains, even though she took her life, a womanwhowas verymuch alive and whose enthusiasm I will never forget. Incontrast to the other women, Ruth was highly emotional,sometimes extreme in her passion, alternately venomous andtame. The splits in Ruth’s psyche (namely between a Jewishand a German identity) were highly pronounced and explain,in part, an ongoing battle to maintain her mental health. Shecried numerous times when with me, which was painful to sitthrough, but she defied the German stereotype of beingdispassionate and matter-of-fact. She said that after she andher father reunited, they cried for fifteen hours. Her hypersen-sitivity to intrusion and her mistrust of others was evident

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when her doorbell buzzed in the midst of the interview. Sheexcused herself and went to her intercom. When no oneanswered, she shouted, panicked, over and over, into theintercom Wer ist da? Wer ist da? (Who’s there?) It took sometime for her to calm down.

Ruth often used third person to look back at herself as“the child,” at what happened to this child, an object, in thepast. In some ways she displayed a simple view of the worldand beheld all Jews as exactly like her father,whom she deeplyloved. Ruth insinuated that her mother “appropriated” theJewish faith when she married her father, whereas Ruth cameby it “naturally” through a devout bondwith her father, so thather mother, perhaps out of jealousy, was against the “Jewishpart” of her daughter.

Ruth was a champion of the underdog; she consistentlyaligned herself with whoever was not in power. As Ruthdescribed her political activities and government denounce-ments, the energy level in the room rocketed. All of that dyna-mism became exhausting to me and eventually, after four hours,to her. This was the first time Ruth had been asked to talk abouther past. The interview gave her the opportunity to voice herstories and, in some small way, cleanse hermind and free herself.

When Inga, a German student who assisted me, and Iarrived at Ruth’s building in Winterhude, Ruth was pleasedto see me but was puzzled by Inga’s presence. When sherealized Inga was German, she became visibly uneasy andasked her if she was a Nazi. After we reassured Ruth of Inga’sinterest and unsullied intentions, she relaxed.

Ruth had an uncluttered appearance. Shewore plain darkpants and a blouse. Her hair—black and gray, wild andkinky—mirrored her fissured and turbulent personality.Throughout the interview, Ruth rapidly shifted between emo-tions. Often she raised her voice, her sable eyes squinting withvexation underneath her thin-rimmed, bifocal glasses, andsquished her lips. Shewas amagnanimous hostess who stuffed

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us with a variety of cakes she had spread out on a small,cramped table.

Ruth called me a few days after her interview to tell methat a Mischling friend of hers had consented to talk with me.Although Ruth knew about my Christian paternal family andthat I was not Jewish, she seemed to have fixed in her mindfor purposes of identification that I was. In her statement tome before we said good-bye, the splits in Ruth’s heritage wereagain evident. Simultaneously, as a German, she clung toJewish stereotypes, but as a Jew, she repulsed them. Ruthexclaimed, “Ja. Du hast die schönsten, großen jüdischen Augen!”(Yes. You have the most beautiful, big, Jewish eyes).

Her Jewish father raised Ruth almost single-handedly;her “Aryan” mother was young and had no interest inmotherhood. Ruth, unlike most of the interviewees, attendedsynagogue. She told how her mother tried to “educate out ofher” all that was Jewish. She forced Ruth to join and attenda Protestant church, which for Ruth was too “metaphysical.”Her father escaped to Belgium in 1938 but was captured bytheNazis. After the British liberated him, hewent to England.Twenty years passed before Ruth saw him again. In someways Ruth epitomizes Sylvia Plath’s words in her poem“Daddy”: I must “get back back back to you.” “Daddy, daddy,you bastard, I’m through.” Ruth was “abandoned” by herfather at age eight, from which she never recovered. Shewrote to him and eventually visited. He refused to speakGerman or return to Germany. Thus they were physically aswell as linguistically separated. Ruth stuck to the Germanland and language, both of which her father had had to rejectin order to live. In themeantime, before hermother remarried,they nearly starved. An accumulation of events led to Ruth’seventual collapse. Although she tried to live with her memo-ries, she had no one to talk to about them. Ruth attributed herresultant fears and repressed emotions to the crippling of herbody: She was stooped, shrunken from having to hide in

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cramped quarters (bomb shelters, basement, and attic), andclaimed her nipples were inverted from trauma. Both herphysical and psychical “bodies” were violated. At liberation,Russian soldiers raped her at gunpoint. Her trauma wasexacerbated by the death of her life partner, whom she didnot name. All the years of repressing her anger, shame, andgrief led to an attempted suicide, for which she was institu-tionalized in a state psychiatric hospital. At various stages inher life, Ruth attempted to “purge” her past through action.She adopted two boys, visited her father, listened to hisstories, and fought against any zealous ideologues. She con-tinually denounced any extremist factions that appeared toemploy Nazi tactics. Philosopher Susan Neiman spoke aboutpeople in Germany like Ruth who “agree that Vergangenheits-verarbeitung [“working through the past”] means maintainingvigilance toward everything in the present which shows signsof repeating the past.”1 Ruth was against “organized commu-nities” for good reason. She saw only mayhem in groups—from the political right and left. She didn’t survive in a vacuum(her mother was with her), but all of her escapes and hidingswere solitary. Although Ruth seemed to have a renewed faithin her fellow Germans, at the time I left Germany she wassuffering again from depression. While Ingeborg Hecht’sunbearable memories of innumerable losses, including herfather’s presumed murder in Auschwitz, did not break her,Yost’s memories of abandonment, brutalization, and anguishdid. For Ruth, the search for expression and securing anidentity ended with her suicide in December 1996.

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I usually don’t talk about these horrible events. To whom would youtalk? People are so preoccupied with themselves. My parents met inBerlin. My Jewish father from Poland was born in 1900 and my

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mother, let me look it up, 1909. [She gets out her journal and reads apoem]: “In 1929, Berlin was as free as Danzig and was the first time Isaw light. But later, my life was so cloudy that it turned out to be theonly light I saw.”2 I was born on December 11, 1929. My mother cameto Berlin in 1926. My father’s parents had an eight-room apartmentin Grenadierstraße. I will talk about these extraordinary grandparentslater.” [Stops reading.]My father’s family came to Berlin in 1904. Theywere Jewish Poles from Bieko near Lodz. My grandparents owned achicken butcher shop in Berlin that was kosher. My father owned a furshop. They were strictly kosher and Orthodox. My grandmother’s hairwas parted “like so,” called a Scheitel—she cut her hair for her husbandand wore a hood. I was Mischling ersten Grades. My daddy was calledBrenner, andmymom, Yost. I attended a Jewish school and went underthe name of Brenner, but afterward switched to Yost. My mom wantedme to survive so she changed it to Yost. My mother died in 1987 atage seventy-eight.

Mymomwas nineteen when I was born. She came from the countryGlindow near Berlin and had learned to clean and sell furs. She workedwith my father in his fur shop. She had learned, however, beforehand.During her pregnancy, she ate coffee beans everyday. It wasn’t good. Shebought quarter-pound coffee bags and just snacked all day. She did itout of greediness. Pregnant women, back then, were greedy. She hid this.Pregnant women even ate the edge of newspapers. They waited for thepaper—not to read—but to eat. Today you can’t imagine but back thenit was true. Greediness came with pregnancy—pickles, fish, somethingsweet—always out of greediness. For my mom, it was coffee beans. Ilooked brownwhen I was born and the doctors thoughtmymomwantedto abort me [because of her eating the beans]. But my mom was justyoung and didn’t know. She was from the country. She didn’t know shewas killing me. The doctor said if she’d continued a few more days, I’dhave been born dead. I was born completely poisoned.

My father came to visit me. The babies were all behind a glasswindow because back then the men couldn’t be with the women. Therewere eight babies and my dad walked by me and said, “Oh, there’s anAfrikaner [from Africa]!” He asked the nurse which one was his. She kept

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saying “No. No,” each time he passed by one and asked. She told him itwas the Afrikaner. And he said, “What? That’s mine? “ There was a bigfight. I was triggering a marriage tragedy. [She laughs.] My dad yelled,“You terrible mom! You wanted to kill the child?” But she didn’t knowshe was poisoning me with caffeine. The struggle didn’t last. My dadtook me home, a little bundle under his arm, and never took me backagain! My baby color wasn’t pink like the other babies, but lilac. Myfather was promptly convinced my mother was too young to takeresponsibility for me—she didn’t know enough—so he bathed me, fedme, changed diapers, carriedme, sang songs like “ArmerGigolo. SchönerGigolo.” In the evenings, he tied my cradle to his wrist and the momentI made a sound he rocked the cradle. My mom, you know, he didn’t letaround. When he went away he said, “Don’t let the child cry.” But shehad heard that children should cry to strengthen their lungs. So he leftbut stood behind the door listening. My mom hit me when she thoughtmy dad was gone, so I’d be strong. Dad came in yelling, “YouRabenmutter [raven mother]!” My mom told me this story later; shethought it was a funny family story. She thought it strange that herhusband was the way he was—pushing the baby buggy back in 1929.No man would push a buggy, but my dad took me out and pushed me.I had an intimate relationship with my father. He never yelled, wascontinuously loving. He always explained everything calmly and factu-ally. He treated me like a young lady.

In this way, I grew up very bonded to my father. He had to be atwork all the time. He was the Kürschner Meister [master furrier]. We hada fur shop andwe had several employees. I was able to speak at tenmonthsold and walk at one. Before I could walk, he used to drag me aroundhanging onto the bottom of his legs. I was always in the fur shop withhim and we had a great relationship. [She laughs.] His slogan was “themost beautiful and the best is almost good enough for my daughter.” Heused to kiss my hand. Finally, at one year and two months, I got up andtook my first steps. My parents were happy. Later on I was allowed tobrush my dad’s hair. They had a huge birdcage in the house with fivetypes of birds. In themorning, we awakened to the singing of these birds.We didn’t need an alarm clock. To the hired people, I always had to be

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friendly and courteous. I didn’t need to be told to behave as everyonewas of the opinion that I was a well-behaved and understanding child.My mom sewed me beautiful dresses of silk and velvet with handworkaround the cuffs. My father sewed me a coat from horse skin with fancylining. I dressed so richly that I was barely able to move. When the sunshone, my dad put the buggy in front of the door and gave me a pieceof fur to play with. On these occasions, I practiced patience.

My earliest memory reaches back into my second year. My motherwent shopping with me. She left me sitting in the buggy outside of thestore. Two boys came up to the buggy and wanted to have my silver ring.I took off the ring and gave it to the biggest guy. I thought he would giveit back to me. But I, being too young to know better, was wrong. Theboy disappeared with the ring and I was left upset. My mom returnedwith her shopping items and I anxiously told her about this incident. Mymother yelled at me for allowing people to steal my possessions. I startedcrying and fell asleep out of sorrow. Two horrible things happened: notonly was I robbed but my mom yelled at me for it. [She laughs.]

My mother, father, and I—together—got along, but mother anddaughter, no. Mymother thought, “This daughter receives so much lovethat she needs discipline.” My mother had a very strict father, a qualitythat she carried on. I was a sensitive and obedient child. It wasunnecessary to treat me strictly—love and caring would have been justfine. I grew up with terrible fear—first of the Nazis, then of my mother.As a result of this “angst,” the nipples on my breasts, rather than growingoutward, are inverted. When a child grows up with so much anxiety andfear, it’s terrible. My mother never hit me, but she directed me with herblue eyes. If I got a dirty look from her, that was enough. My motheralways believed in God and prayed. She often sewed beautiful clothes,and she’d say, “God has given me these hands. Good things come fromGod. Bad things result from human sinfulness.” My mother referred toHitler as a mass murderer, like Stalin, but with differences.

In 1938 my father left Germany. When an eight-year-old has abroken relationship with a loved one, it fractures the child’s soul. I usedto hide under my covers at night and cry and pray for my father becauseI knew he was in a camp. We had gotten a letter from the Swiss Red

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Cross with twelve words in it. That’s how many words he was allowedto write. In 1938 he escaped to Belgium and stayed in a “feeding camp.”He knew a smuggler who left him in No-Man’s Land between theborders. They hid him with a “mixed-marriage” household. The secondtime he accomplished crossing over the borders, he came into the feedingcamps. Germans invaded and asked them, nicely, to come out, to giveup. But it was a trap. This was near the French/Spanish border right bythe water. They were SS men and treated the hideaways in the mostundignified manner, completely subhuman. The SS put them likeanimals into the ship’s bottom storage rooms with the rats and shit; theship was sailing to North Africa. In the work camp, my father had to digSchutzwälle [protective walls]. He was under Erwin Rommel inMorocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. He was always in camps and got almostnothing to eat. The Spanish people caught rats, which they gladly ate.My father lost weight to his skin and bones. My father was liberatedshortly before the war ended when Montgomery had victory overRommel in Tunisia. The British liberated them after four years.

My father never stepped on German soil again because Jewish bloodwas used to fertilize the soil that gave us German bread, and he wouldnever eat the bread.3 He could never hear the German language again.He said they only screamed, like those in the army, no? My father hadalways spoken in a mannerly and calm way because we weren’t deaf. Hespoke at an appropriate level of pitch. Because the Nazis had screamedand shouted—done all of that—he didn’t want to hear the language.The dates I haven’t put together yet but that doesn’t mean you have todoubt my word. I am glad that I wasn’t in a camp; I was able to escapeand live in hiding. As a child my only wish was to stand upright, to beunafraid of exposure. At the end of the war, I thought the Russians weremy liberators, but the way they liberated me I could have done without,as you can imagine. I was raped. That happened to me. It was a shock.I even wanted to commit suicide when I was older. Although I did try,it was good that I didn’t succeed because my father is still alive. Hesurvived. He’s ninety-four.

My father was very proper. He played soccer. He was a great man.I knew only good Jews, none who were nasty. There are some Jews who

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aren’t good, I realize, but only a small percentage. Some of the Jews wereKapos4 in the concentration camps. They were promised that if they’dtake this job, they’d live. They mistreated other Jewish people, their ownblood brothers, even shoveled them into ovens to burn. That is a verybad chapter in history. If you plant badness, then badness comes out—evil nurtured and promoted brought out the worst in the Jews as well. Ihave a great respect for those I knew who were in camps and survived.They’ve lived through torture and martyrdom that one can’t imagine.In comparison to that,my fate is not so severe. Youmust always dowhat’sright by people while alive because once you’re dead you can’t doanything. We must do good. [She repeats three times]. One has anobligation to do good. That’s my opinion.

My father loves England. He speaks only English. Nevertheless, hewrites letters in German to me. I speak only a little English. I stay inGermany because I speak German. I used to speak Oxford English. I’mback at zero. You forget a language after a while whenworking and living.I visited my father twice. He remarried to a Bavarian Jew and had a son.My half-brother, Stuart Brenner, is a professor of literature. He is in histhirties and lives in London, near Wimbledon. Both live in my father’shouse. My father has, unfortunately, an unhappy marriage. He says thathis wife is Adolf Hitler. I can’t see that. It’s sad that he hasn’t hadharmony in his marriage. My father cried over the camps. If my fatherspeaks about the camps, he cries. It’s incapacitating if one doesn’t get itout. I’d like to have spared him from the need to cry at this age. Theworld should be such that no one needs to cry. Mentally he’s unclouded,but slower at ninety-four. He writes perfectly clearly.

At the time I went to visit my father in London, 1957, his second wifesaid tome, “I’mClara. I’mnot your aunt. I’mnot yourmother. JustClara.”That was very decent of her. I was twenty-eight years old. I hadn’t seenmyfather in twenty years. He was so much shorter than I, which I couldn’tunderstand at all. I had only childhood memories, and at that momentcouldn’t grasp why he was so short. I couldn’t deal with it, but I saidnothing. We had written to each other always. He wrote that he’d beenremarried. But he didn’t inform me that he had a two-year-old son—thiswhen I was twenty-eight. A sign in the living room said: “Happy Birthday.

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Two Years Old.” And I thought, what is this? Then Clara comes out witha boy on her arm. She said, “This is Shamala, after my grandfather who’scalled Shama.” He was called Shamala at the time. It means “poet.” Shecalled him Shamala but he took an English name, Stuart, and henceforthwas Stuart. Shamala came forward with blue eyes and blond curls, and Ididn’t understand theworld anymore. [She laughs.] “Whydidn’t youwriteto me about this, Papa?” He said, “I wanted to surprise you.” And I said,“Well, you succeeded.” That was that.

In 1989 I went to see my father again. I insisted on seeing him again,but he didn’t want to have me because it was too crowded in the house.His wife was living on the top floor, and he on the bottom floor, and therooms were arranged so that Stuart was upstairs in another room. I wasbooked in a hotel, not in the house. I stayed three days. But I wanted tosee him again. He looked rundown. It’s true. Naturally, he’s terribly upsetthat they [Germans] killed his parents, and his brothers were killed. Buthe was glad one brother, Jakob, was in America. But then Jakob died. Andit got to him. It was hard.My father had raised his son in London. He soldfur in London because the dealers still knew him. He got merchandise tosell on commission. And then came Greenpeace and you weren’t allowedto sell animals like before because back then there were more animals thanpeople. You didn’t pay attention to tearing apart animal families. [Shesmiles.] Today you pay attention to that. But in business, not really. Hewasn’t able to sell minks anymore. So he sold shirts and jewelry. He alwayssold goods on commission. When a Jewish person was in a crisis, hetightened his belt and didn’t eat. That’s how it was. No one talked aboutit. You didn’t cheat or swindle, as the Nazis claimed we did. If someonecame to bargain for a fur my dad said, “You think because I’m a Jew youcan bargain. I have fixed prices. I’ll raise the prices and you come back inand we’ll bargain to the regular price.” He had to pay taxes and otherexpenses like everyone else.

My head went crazy and my nerves were shattered without myfather—a child’s nerves go kaput. [She alludes to a psychiatrist whoseemingly told her that a child would be destroyed without a parent.] Idon’t want to complain at all because I didn’t have to go to a camp—Ishould be humble—I escaped when I was fourteen.

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Mymother, forced to expose herself to the Gestapo, was mistreated,beaten up, and called “Jewish whore,” and was asked where her husband,“the Jewish rascal,” went. My mom couldn’t withstand the pressure anymore by herself, you understand? So she married to get the pressure off.Shemet a Communist and later married him and he becamemy stepdad,who was a good man. But still I always missed my dad because I’dworshipped him.Mymother probably remarried around 1940. The firstmarriage was considered annulled. A Jewish marriage wasn’t legallyrecognized. Because of that, I was considered an illegitimate child.Sometimes we hid German Communists in our house and sometimesJews. We always were in danger because of that, that’s clear. Once mystepdad and I were together in the backyard and we promised with ashake of the hand that wewould shoot each other if we got crippled [fromthe bombings]. We didn’t think about the fact that one of us could havebeen hanged if the other survived. It was a clear agreement between mystepfather and me. He was a Communist, a good Communist, which Iseparate from the other Communists.

At the time [before her mother remarried], we lived with Jewishpeople, as the Nazis had taken everything we owned. So my mother ranwith me through the streets. She said, “Little Ruth, you haven’t hadanything to eat yet? Why didn’t you say anything?” I said, “Oh, Mom,you have so many concerns, why should I come to you with my stupidworries and my hunger?” That I said as a child. They took the fur shop,housing, and furniture away so we were on the street. We didn’t knowwhere to go so we found a place with a Jewish couple on Koloniestraße85. We obtained a room and my mom asked her parents for a sewingmachine so she could make a living. We were very poor—we didn’t evenhave a mannequin—so I had to try on all the clothes.

� � �

When I was in the Jewish school, I had a Jewish Pole teacher namedHerr Berg. He was picked up in the school room by the Gestapo, andall the children had to line up against the wall. As we left the school,

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Nazis threw rocks at us. I always ran with my school bag in front ofme. I told you already that I must be grateful that I wasn’t in aconcentration camp. But I did have suffering and worries. These eventsdon’t leave a child without traces. After all, I was sensitive andintelligent, not dumb. I was also empathetic. It was horrible for methat my cousins, male and female, were in camps. I heard from mycousin Leo that he was with his father and his entire family inSachsenhausen [a “work” camp]. He had to carry his own father to thegas chambers. The son had to carry his father into the gas chambers!The Nazis had thought of purely bestial actions against humans—undignified and mentally torturing. They had done such horriblethings that I, of course, had a fear of being taken [to a camp].

My mom decided to transfer me to an Aryan school. When I wentto theGerman school, I never felt bullied.No one bulliedme.Mymotherwas of the opinion that I was. However, I was not of that opinion. I wasunhappy, no? Because my father was not there. I did not feel compelledto say “Heil Hitler.” I had to say it because I didn’t want to go to thecamps where others were. I had to say the German Gruss [Nazi salute],which was horrible for me. But what could I do? I didn’t want to go toa concentration camp so I said the Gruss. I always felt like a bad personwhen I did this, so I found a way to reinterpret the greeting with myhands so that it looked as if I was unlocking a door.

Once, in school, there was a reptile exhibition. They always said thatJews were cowards so I had to prove to myself, and to make the point toothers, that I was not, so I agreed to have a snake wrapped around myneck. I was surprised that the snake wasn’t warm and wet but was coldand dry. As a kid I always heard about these horrible things [done to theJews]—that they had to stand in water in the basement with rats, and Iheard what the Nazis had done to them, pulling their skin off to use forlampshades and misusing them for medical experiments; the mosthorrible for me was the experiments they did on twins.5

And when a child voiced a wish, he was killed. When I heard aboutthis I was so unhappy, as I loved the Jewish people. I had only loving,caring people aroundmewhen I grew up, but now theywere all in camps.My grandparents were back in Poland, picked up in 1938, and killed.

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[She is looking at pictures.] This is my father’s fur shop. That is UncleIsaac who was killed in the gas chambers, and Uncle Bernhard who waskilled. Jakob was in the ghetto in Poland and had a relationship with awoman there. They had a baby who had to grow up in a Stückensack [asack]; otherwise the SS would have killed him. That is a four-corneredworld to grow up in. Horrible. There were four brothers who each hada car, and that is my dad’s car. That is my father and Uncle Jakob whocame out of the ghetto with his child and wife to go to London. Myfather was shocked when he saw the child. Uncle Bernhard. Uncle Isaac.You see. They drove to the place that distributed the furs. They were allfurriers. These four brothers. There were six kids. Uncle Oskar, on theright side, and his wife with his daughter and son immigrated to BuenosAires in time. They were the only ones who were saved; they had leftalready in 1934.

I found out about the camps because, you know, in the Jewishcommunity, everything goes frommouth to mouth. People spoke abouta Jewish person being here or there. We transmitted any information wecould get, as we had the same fate. The Communists were engaged [withNazis] in street fights. Communists were the first to be eliminated. TheNazis weren’t against just the Jews but also the Gypsies, the homeless,and infirm.They stuffed them together in camps. A real factory of killing;a machinery of murder. There had never been anything like it before. InBosnia and Serbia, we see horrible similarities. But that is war.Only theNazis have thought of machinery in order to kill people. For example,in a regular war, unlike the war against the Jews, the next morning anofficer will sit down and write “150 dead.” Death is not that systematicin war. But in order to kill 6 million people you need time; it can’t bedone at once. That’s how the Nazis did it, by a system.

The fact that I was close to the Jewish people is clear because as ayoung child I learned Hebrew but forgot it because when you don’tuse a language, it falls asleep. The only thing I have left is a familyAggadah that I got after the war.6 I can speak Yiddish. [She says a fewwords.] I had to learn German in school as a foreign language becausemy mother spoke Yiddish at home. My mother learned all the ritualsthat belonged to the Jewish religion and kept a strictly kosher

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household. My mother was Lutheran, then became Jewish. She had tolearn everything—the codes of Jewish law, Shulchan Aruch, and therites for directing a Jewish household, to keep milk and meat separate,and Lichten Bentchen [candle lighting]. It’s like a test. The rabbioversees it. I grew up with biblical teachings, strictly Orthodox. Iprayed for my dad, even in church, but never let my mother know. Wenever talked about it. I was silent. This strictly religious aspect is stilla part of me, even though I’m atheist.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, I was four years old and wentto synagogue. They screamed after us: “Jews! Jews! Jews!” I don’t havethe type of voice to shout like that. I asked my dad, frightened, “Arewe something like that?” and I leaned against him. “Yes, little Ruth,we are Jews.” And then I knew we were Jews. This is how we went tothe synagogue, very quiet and thoughtful inside. In the synagogue Iwas allowed to stand with the men. In the Talmud Torah there is onespot in which the entire community has to turn around. Excuse me,while I cry. [She does, briefly.] I had to turn around with my back toGod. I stood by my daddy. He said, “Little Ruth. You have to turnaround because in the Talmud Torah room, there is God.” So we allturned around. I was a little child and I was curious, so I secretly turnedback around to see God. And as we went out, I whispered to my dad,“Papa, I wasn’t able to see God. He wasn’t there.” He said, “But, littleRuth, I told you not to turn around and you turned around anyway,so you were disobedient. And if one is disobedient, one can’t see God.”From then on, my dad was not only the dearest but also the greatestof all to me.

I became Lutheran because my mother wanted me to survive. I wasfourteen years old when I was confirmed. I was in the Church of Zionand received religious instruction. Then I was torn apart—suddenly Ihad two faiths—you can’t even imagine it. I’d understood the OrthodoxJewish faith, but not the Protestant faith because it’s metaphysical. So Ihad to have metaphysics explained to me. I had to adopt another faithto stay alive but being in two faiths gave me more responsibilities. I wascaught between what I had learned as a youngster and as a teenager. Iwas here and there.

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Sometime during the war, I couldn’t get point and food cards.7 Mymom and stepdad shared their bread, but they only got small portions.The worst thing is that I was growing and they could have asked me dayand night if I was hungry and I’d have said, “Yes!” Back then, the beautyideal wasn’t Twiggy like today. Everybody was skinny then—everyonehad limited calories. A twist from how it is today. A person was supposedto have 1,800 calories but no one had it. At night I stole bread from mymother who caught me and yelled, “You’re lying. You’re stealing.” I gotup at night and cut off pieces from my parents’ bread. I didn’t have thecourage to say I’d done it. So then, I guess I lie, I steal, I’m a very badperson. I felt guilty but the fact that I did it out of hunger, no oneexplained was okay.

My mom made it possible for me to escape in 1944. At the time, Iwas an apprentice with an engineer and a blacksmith. The blacksmithtold me not to come back. He said, “We had another half Jew here, HerrPetts,Mischling ersten Grades, and you shouldn’t come back because youwill be picked up at my office.” Of course, I was to be put into aconcentration camp, that was clear. In the second to last year of the war,the civilians couldn’t travel any more. We learned there was a personwho would allow us to travel to Tirol, Austria, which was part of theReich then, but seemed a place where my identity could be hidden. Ipacked my bags. When I left my mother I wondered if I would ever seeher again because of the bombs. I experienced all of the bombs out inthe open, not in the bunkers. Every bomb attack. I wasn’t allowed to gointo a bomb shelter. Later on it was impossible for me to ever watchfireworks. It was the same as an air raid. Because the Americans alwayshad their area marked with light rockets you knew where the next bombwould fall. Splinters were all around me.

With my meager belongings, I went to Tirol and when I saw theAlps for the first time, my mouth stood open. I had to be carefuleverywhere. I didn’t have any food stamps with me. My mother hadgiven me travel stamps. That was, at the time, very difficult. In any case,I was there for fourteen days or three weeks, I don’t know for sure. Ithink it was threeweeks. Then I got a note that I had to come toKitzbühel[in theWestern Alps] for a heart examination. I got an appointment and

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rode out there. I had the habit of always getting round-trip tickets. Again,I had unbelievable luck. The doctor examinedme, then sent the assistantout and said, “Listen. There are two men who want to pick you up. Iwill send you up to the back door and you will say, ‘I need to go to thebathroom.’ If anybody asks you, say you have to go to the bathroom.”He was supposed to examine my heart but he didn’t; he warned me. Hehad courage, civil courage, I call that. I went out and ran throughKitzbühel—at fourteen you can run quickly, no? The two Hässlers[thugs]8 came after me. Of course they couldn’t run as fast as I could. Atthe ticket office at the train station they were punching the tickets. I wentup to the guy, punched my ticket, ran into the car, and the doors closed.I had incredible luck. I arrived back in Fieberbrunn and of course no oneknew I wasMischling there. So I packedmy bags and rode back to Berlin.There was an air raid in Munich. Back then the trains were packed andhad no windows. After twelve hours you start to collapse from fatigue,but you can’t fall because there are so many people crammed together. Ihad to go to the South Station, then to the North Station with heavybaggage. I asked a troop leader whether I could check the bag throughbecause I couldn’t carry it any more. This bag was all I had, and I knewthat I couldn’t go out and buy anything to replace it, as things weren’tavailable. I had no “point cards” left for buying merchandise. I couldn’tcheck it through, but the bag went through every man’s hand in thecompany and was passed on through the North Station. When I arrivedin Berlin there was a preliminary air raid alarm and everybodywas alreadyback in the basement. This was my luck because they couldn’t see mearrive. When I reached home in East Berlin my mother screamed, “Ohno, what now?” I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll hide.” I couldn’t stand it anymore—they were persecutingme in Austria as well. They were organizedthrough and through—one thing they were capable of—you can’t takethat away from them. Today they’re still not worth anything, excuse me.We had a weekend house in Mahlsdorf Süd [part of Berlin that was inEast Germany/the Soviet Occupation Zone] that belonged to mystepfather. He built a basement hole where there were shelves to storefood, as back in those days you would can food—we had a garden fromwhich we got fruit. And there I was sitting on the ladder; I couldn’t

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straighten up. Mom put the carpet again over the trapdoor and put achair over that—there were no windows, only a little trapdoor to bringin air. I lived there until the Russians marched in, May 8, 1945. I waitedfor them asmy liberators. But you can’t imagine how disappointed I was.

My mother wanted me to study. As a “half-breed first degree” Iwasn’t allowed to study. It wasn’t an option. I couldn’t go toGymnasium[college prep school]. I was an apprentice for a technical draftsman. ThenI had to escape.When theRussians came,mymom sentme toHumboldtUniversity. I was so stupid that I didn’t know the German DemocraticRepublic [DDR] was building their communism on Herder’s philoso-phy. I didn’t know back then, otherwise, I would have chosen Herder asmy topic. I chose Gottlieb Klopstock, the man with the odes.9 That wascompletely off base so they didn’t accept me in the university. My paperwas off the party lines. My mother was shocked. The one thing theycould say about me: I carried no traces of a National Socialist because Ihad been persecuted.

The population was starving after the war; we had a lot of hunger. Iwas employed by the magistrate and earned Allied money. [Her Commu-nist stepfather probably was able to prove that she and her family wereinnocent, not only anti-Nazis but even of the correct political persuasion.]I was only fifteen. The mayor, Assmus, came out of a camp. He was aCommunist. One of the cows died in the summer and we didn’t havecooling houses. So Assmus wanted to share the cow with the populationso everyone had something to eat. The commander was always drunk onvodka. I don’t rememberhis name, unfortunately.One should alwayswritedown life events. The commander said, “Nyet. Nyet” concerning the cow.Assmus divided the cow. The commander found out and put Assmus insolitary confinement for fourteendays and took awayhis office andhonors.[She is disillusioned by the way the Russian commander treated theGerman Communist mayor.] I was a young person; I had high ideals anddidn’t understand that. It was a time of chasing downNazis. All the Naziswere liquidated by the Russians, which I could understand though I neverbetrayed anyone. I didn’t want anything to do with it. It would have beenbelow my human dignity to betray other people. The ones who wantednames were Russians, but I was still German. I was born in Berlin and I

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never would have given a Nazi away to a Russian. When they found one,I had nothing to do with it. And then the question arose: What will we dowith the NS [Nazi] children? Well, you know, those were women fortyyears old who wanted to kill them too, and there I was the youngest and Isaid,No,make FDJ people out of them.10 You have done somuch to themalready, you took away their father and mother, let them become FDJpeople. And they listened to me and did that. It was Berlin, Mahlsdorf—the east sector in Berlin was bad. The following situation happened. Theywanted to give me the Communist party book so that I could becomeCommunist. I rejected it. I was so young back then that they didn’t doanything to me. As an older person I wouldn’t have gotten away with it.But I told them, I’m so young. I don’t want to decide yet. That was myexcuse. My job with the magistrate ended. My mother yelled. I was theone bringing home the money.

When I was nineteen years old in 1948 I made an attempt to escapefrom East Berlin. My parents stayed in what was to become the DDRin 1949. On the American side, little death flags indicated minefields.On the Russian side, there were no markers. The Russians werecelebrating at the border. I heard screaming and kept running. I didn’tknowwhere I was. I ran through a potato field that lookedmole-ridden.The Russians wanted people to be blown up. I would have gone up inthe air as well if I hadn’t been lucky. I got through to the Americanside, leaned against a tree, and looked back. I thought, “My God. Youjust went through a minefield.”

My mom was still in Mahlsdorf Süd. I worked as a social worker ona farm. I took retirement applications and when the refugees came, Ioften gave out bread. It was nasty—lots of lice. Russians came and thereImet awoman, a translator, and learnedRussian. I didn’t trust the officialtranslator; he had that kind of face one couldn’t give a loaf of bread to.I rejected the Communist party. I don’t believe in clubs and parties. I’mnot interested. A person needs to realize himself as an individual, to gethis head in motion, his spirit ruling over all, and to not conceive ofhimself as part of themasses, just accepting everything. If you don’t thinkon your own, you become stupid. There’s a cultural cliché: A German

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who’s not involved in politics poses no trouble for the state. They arepart of the problem. They are the reason I have a repulsion for themasses.The masses fall easily into mass hysteria, into this or that, allowthemselves to be directed. They need a leader. Each person is anindividual. Each person should develop his own character and get hisfaculties and guiding spirit [spiritus rector] going, put them into action,and critically view everything presented to him, not get a sense of selfthrough Vermassung, from becoming one with the masses. That issomething detrimental. Everyone should develop the ability to expresshimself in words in order to intervene, in order to influence events. Sowhen you have the chance to make an impact, you can. I had bad luck;I was not able to develop myself. I would have liked to learn languages—I had the talent—but I had to work and earn money.

I am not against communism, just organization. There are goodCommunists, who want positive things, and there’s communism thatmakes themasses daft, and I consider that dangerous. You need to protectyourself. At fifteen and a half, I saw what the Russians did to their ownand to Germans, an admirable Communist like Assmus. You can chooseto be nasty, base, and oppressive, but you don’t have to be. The warmadepeople so awful. And the population was starving, but the commanderwouldn’t give up the cow. He celebrated his victory with vodka. He said,“Nyet!” That was pure nastiness. Why? People are just people—whetheryou’re a doctor or whatever, you’re still a person. But when you don’tprove yourself as a human, then to me you’re an idiot. There are thosewho are highly educated who are idiots. You have to watch out. Throughall I’ve lived through I’ve become careful. Basically, I’ve become anEigenbrötler [a loner or eccentric].

Later on, I had a partner for ten years. We did not marry. He diedhere in my lap. It doesn’t have anything to do with the persecution,but these events can still affect people. He had a brain tumor, surgery,and for eight hours, I supervised the machines. When he was thirsty,I gave him something to drink. He learned how to walk by my side.We weren’t married and you don’t need a piece of paper to be aharmonious pair. My dad is legally married and it’s not a happy union.

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But my partner died in my lap and I was so in shock that I wanted tocommit suicide. There was no one left who loved me anymore.Naturally, my father loved me. That’s clear. But receiving mail two tothree times in a year and with 365 days, there’s just not enough contact.I felt alone and by myself. My partner died August 8, 1989. I lay forthirty-six days and did not eat, but I was stupid and drank water.Maybeit was meant to be that way so that my father, who had survivedeverything, wouldn’t get a notice that I’d killed myself. A friend ofmine saved me. They put me in the state psychiatric hospital. For anintelligent person, that was so humiliating. But it was my fault. Whywould I want to kill myself? During this time, everything becomes amess—the dates and events. It is always good that one doesn’t rememberevents so exactly, so horrible things can’t be remembered.

I wanted to write a book about my experiences. But then I decidedthere was even much suffering after the Second World War. There werefifty-four wars in the world after the second war. People had absolutelynot learned anything from the destruction. People are neither noble norhumanitarian. They are nothing. It is possible to tempt humans to useany weapon. It is possible to convince them to abuse others whileperforming the worst deeds. And what’s the use of that? When I was ayoung girl, I thought, If I had a child now—I could have had childrenbecause I was healthy and always loved children as I still do today—couldI protect it from war and persecution? [She makes a connection to hermother as the cause of her persecution, when, in fact, she was persecutedbecause of her father.] I forbade myself to have a child. Because if youcan’t protect it from the world, you have no right to put it into the world.You have to assure a child a decent life, and if you can’t take responsibilityfor that then you must not have a child. For these reasons, I didn’t allowmyself to have biological children. I asked myself, “Can you have kids?Can you protect them from war and persecution?” “No,” I answered. I’mnot going to expose my children to the filth of the world. Only someonewho’s been through terror would think that. In a normal family, they’djust want to continue the genetic line, to have children. I didn’t actwithout first reflecting. Instead, I took twins out of a shelter because Ialways wanted to have children. I had to take them forcibly like a lion.

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My double obligation is my twins. They are lovely kids. They’re one-quarter Indonesian. This was theNazi way to describe people, and I admitI fall into using this jargon. I received these childrenwhen theywere seven.I met them when they were four. I saved them from the filth and feces.The mother was Sylvia, half Indonesian from her mother, half Dutchfrom her father. In Hamburg, she was exotic. The boys tugged on theirmother’s skirt when they wanted something. I taught them to speak.[Apparently, Sylvia cleaned in the apartment building and left the boysto play with Ruth.] Sylvia was taken away by a young, blue-eyed guy. Herhusband was an alcoholic. He started drinking in Chad [Africa]. Therewas reason to believe he hit her, or at least, it wasn’t a happy marriage.Her husband had an inn and had to keep it open twenty-four hours. Itwas renovated in 1961. One day he took the kids to the orphanage. I said,“Why not give them to me?” He didn’t give the kids to me because heknew that Sylvia knew me. I thought, What would have happened ifthey’d learned to speak in an orphanage? I wasn’t a foster mother but agenuine parent. I took over custody of the kids. I gave up my job to carefor them. I had to rent a bigger apartment. I had to work with thembecause of problems they’d had with their violent father who had beatenthem. If someone had not stepped in, I don’t know what would havehappened. I took them out of the home and put them into a special schoolfor retarded children. They were Milieu geschädigt, damaged by theirsurroundings. I had to take them to school. They used to beat their headson the wooden headboards before they slept, so I spent nights by theirside. But I succeeded. I gave them tea to quiet them in the evenings.

� � �

I am not religious today. I’m atheist. I was at a meeting organized by theCatholic churchwhere they discussed categorization and its problems. Eachreligion—Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, andMuslim—sees itself as the rightone. We must reenvision, resee, abandon categories so there’s less conflict.Warfare results from thinking “My way is the only way.” Use of religion inpolitics is a pretext, a way to start wars, create division. It’s a scheme.

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There was unemployment before Hitler. Jews were the scapegoats.I wrote that in my childhood memory book. Hitler was looking for“guilty ones,” so he used the minority in his country as scapegoats.Jewish people were blamed for everything. This is from my childhoodmemory book; it’s not a diary. I wrote, “National Socialists gainedpower in 1933. They’re looking for scapegoats for their bad situation.They found that the minority of their country had caused unemploy-ment and poverty. They invented the Übermenschen and Untermen-schen.11 These Germans were all failures. They found support in thisparty. They mistreated Jews wherever they could.”

Hitler wanted to conquer the whole world. In school I had to learna poem that said, “I’m born to feel German,” totally geared towardGerman thinking. “First comesmy people then all the many others. Firstcomes my homeland and then the world.” That is an attitude, can youbelieve it? I still feel sorry today for those who learned and internalizedthat. Those who have attached their identity to this attitude, “I’m greatbecause I’m German,” are boastful.

Do you know that Germans have learned absolutely nothing? Thereare still anti-Semites as before. The youth are, in part, open-minded andinformed about what happened. But the majority is easily temptedtoward National Socialism. One can see it with the neo-Nazis. I knowthat the Americans gave the Nazis Persil certificates.12 I don’t know if itwas 1954 or 1956. Because they were “pardoned” through the Persilcertificates, Nazis sit in the critical position as bastions, as protectionagainst Bolshevism. The SS people put their fortunes in the factories andstabilized the economy, and they had the say in West Germany. Nowwe have the reunification, and in our government the former “Bolshevi-kies” [Communists] have their say, and the National Socialists havetheirs. We have the extremes together. Not all of them fit the stereotypesof their group. There are exceptions. You can’t generalize and put themall in one basket. I wouldn’t ever do that. If someone tells me so and sois a certain age I won’t assume he’s a nationalist. If I know the type ofhousehold from which he came, I’d know if he were morally educated.God bless, I think you, Cynthia, would be one of the educated. I would

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never attack them or anything. Ever since I was young I always said notto live with hate. It’s impossible to function with hate.

Unfortunately, I never felt anything good about my mother. I alwaysthought she might be a stepmother. I was left alone with her. I grew upscared of her. I never had an intimate relationship with her. Never. Shewas very strict with me. [She yells this sentence.] Only when I was thirtydid I forgive her. Before that, I was unable. Then the relationship changed.I sent her parcels from the West because in East Germany there wasnothing to eat. I had to support my parents. My mother had always takencare of me, and I had never forgotten that, so I always sent packages. It wasclear I would do this because we had shared money and ration cards. Shetook care of me and made it possible for me to flee. She was responsibleand industrious, but my misguided upbringing was horrid. She seemed toenjoy inflicting punishment. But she was too young; she couldn’t freeherself from naiveté. With my twins, I took the right path, brought themup differently. Even when things went wrong, I was positive. Even whenthey spilled milk. When we went Easter egg hunting, I’d show them theeggs. The kids are self-confident. That’s wonderful. One is a healthcarepractitioner. The other runs a press agency. I put all of my efforts intoraising them. I was here; I didn’t want them raised by TV.

Everything that was Jewishmymother tried to educate out of me, butyou can’t educate that out of me. That word “Jude” was a Schimpfwort, aninsult, no? Among the Jews, you say Juredisch, not Judisch, which is aninsult, a disparaging word. These were words ingrained in people’s mindsat that time. Anti-Semites say, “Ach, die Juden, die Juden.” Fifty-four warshave occurred afterWorldWar II. Suffering from natural catastrophes hasoccurred. We can’t forget. When anti-Semitism is brought up, theGermans wonder why, as so much has happened since, and the Germanstoo suffered from the war. They say, That’s been some time ago, why talkabout it now? I came into this world of suffering and now nobody wantsto know about it. The focus today is Bosnia, which is understandable. Butsomehow that doesn’t make the sufferings of Jews smaller.

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How I feel as a woman in Germany I relate to the emancipation. [Shecomments on the outdated use of the words Frau and Fraulein.] In the1960s, people asked me if I was married and they’d say, no, then, you’reFraulein Yost. I could never become Frau Yost. I had to get married tograduate to Frau. Silly. I never married at all. I had a strict upbringing:Orthodox, Jewish, Lutheran, and I suffered from rape. You can imaginehow I felt at the time. My mother said, after I was raped at age fifteen,“The best thing has been taken away from you.” Can you imagine? Theattitudes from when I grew up and those of today are so different. I canspeak with you today; it’s a freer sexual atmosphere. Then I was veryinhibited and I didn’t know anything. At twenty-one, I saw a naked manand was horrified. When I was raped, they had pistols. I couldn’t seeanything. They pointed pistols right at me. It was awful. Before the war,I was in the basement, and after the war, in the attic hiding from theRussians. The women were defenseless. But afterward, nobody talkedabout it. About rape. It was a taboo. Several women were with me in theattic—there was not enough room to stand up straight. This was aproblem in my childhood—not being able to stand up straight or situpright. My only wish in life was to stand up straight. The Russians weredrunk and rousting in the house andwe had to be quiet. The door lookedlike part of the wall. We opened it and saw khaki uniforms outside andclosed the door.13 All the women who were raped had to come to termswith it. There was no psychotherapy. It was silly what my mother said—that the most beautiful thing was taken away from me. Is that supposedto be some consolation? I wasn’t able to absorb what shemeant. I’m sorryto talk so much. [She laughs.]

I don’t associate the Americans with liberation, as the Russiansliberated us and whom, ironically, I had to fear. We always askedourselves, Why didn’t they [Americans] bomb the camps, or at least thetrain tracks, to stop the suffering more quickly? Why destroy the civilianpopulation in the streets? The horror came from the undignified mannerof the deaths in the camps. The people in there had experienced suchmisery that one can’t even imagine it. A quick death would have beensomething humane. Then one asks over and over again, “Why don’t theybomb the camps?” They were never bombed. That was also a question.

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That is a question. It’s an ethically difficult standpoint to take. One withhorror, horror without end. Of course, some have lived, thank God. Butfor their entire lives they’ll suffer. My father, for example. He still criestoday at ninety-four years old. Why does the poor man still have to cry?Why? He didn’t do any crime. He wasn’t an inmate. They put him inprison just because hewas Jewish.Well, that’s an argument. I quit writingdown my childhood experiences as I told myself my family were becoveteLeute [honorable people]. They were principled humans but wouldanybody believe me? What if some Leberwurst [jerk] comes and says, “Iam Heil Leberwurst [self-important]” and says to me about my writings,“You’re lying,” then I’m in the same stupid position as always. So, whytake the risk? As I say, my family were honorable people.14 They werehonest citizens. Even if you’re in a lower class you can be honorable ifyou go to church. Retired people, like myself, are not appreciated; theydon’t have a good image. I am an outsider again.

An outsider is always in opposition. In Hamburg they’re calledQuiddje.15 If you’re not born in Hamburg, if you came in by train,you’re a Quiddje. So the Hamburgers say. Outsiders are always inconflict with themselves. With other people, I have always tried to getalong. I mean, I have not lived in conflict with other people; at workI adjusted and always worked in jobs as a salesperson. You know I comefrom a private business household. I always learned my jobs withinfourteen days and studied during my working hours and on eveningsat home. That is also stress. In this way I was hired to sell clothes,jewelry, and German health insurance that I sold independently. I havenever spoken about myself. I’ve never said, “I’m half Jewish and waspersecuted.” That is no one else’s business—that is my intimate life. Iwouldn’t know how that would be taken because I didn’t know whoat work was a Nazi or wasn’t. One couldn’t have known, and I neverasked. I just did my job. Today there are still many Nazis. That’s whyanti-Semitism is so powerful. No one passed down values or ideals tothe young neo-Nazis. Frequently as kids they were beaten. They werehit in their parents’ home. They come from “uncivilized” households.That is an assumption on my part. Parents didn’t set any ideals orvalues. The kids were put on the wrong track. In gangs, they have a

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community and with their beer-drinking colleagues they feel comfort-able. They have a community where they’re accepted and where they’rewanted for their own personalities. That’s the problem. Because yousee I have taken care that the children of Nazis have not been killed.For that I took care. I didn’t want their children killed. I don’t approveof killing children. The kids of the Nazis are not the neo-Nazis. Thisgeneration is not the neo-Nazis, which would be an easier explanation.Then they have kids. This way, I may have even enabled the Nazis todevelop again by saving Nazis without intending that. I was intelligentas a young person, and I always thought that peace was essential, butfor that to happen, one has to keep peace. But in those households,peace wasn’t kept. I experienced that here three years ago in theGoldbek Markt [a market area in Hamburg]. I experienced those bigguys, like the SS men, always really big, and they talked about thefinancial assets of the Jewish people in America. You know what I did?I jumped in front of those three guys and I spit and said, “You don’tknow what you’re talking about. Don’t talk like that. They, the Nazis,are the ones who stole the Jewish money.” I can yell very loudly,projecting my voice from my stomach like an actor on stage, so loudthat the whole marketplace could hear. The guys just left.

I don’t think anti-Semitism was strong before 1933 in Germany orthat there was always a hidden feeling about this in society. Among theGerman National Socialists, yes, but not in the general population.There, no. Because they liked buying from Jews. They loved Jews. TheJewish businessmen were popular as bosses. Employees liked working formy father.Why? They were treated like family.When somebody workedfor him, he didn’t suppress him but treated him like a human being. AllJews did that, and that’s why the population basically liked them, butnot by the German Nationalists, not by them.

The mood that turned people against the Jews was, for one, theHetzpropaganda [inflammatory propaganda]. [She repeats this phrasefive times.] This was horrible. The Völkischer Beobachter [people’sobserver]16 showed the Jews with such a nose and sitting on the top of abag of money and with such a stomach and so on. [She displays withgestures.] And today—three years ago—they were standing again in the

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marketplace, such tall guys. Thoseweren’t neo-Nazis; theywereNationalSocialists, do you understand? I am stronger within myself because I dobelieve in God, although I say I’m atheist and keep a distance fromeverywhere, do you understand? I am very strong inside because I tellmyself that God is with me, and then I am definitely strong, you see,because they all said, “My goodness, do you have courage!”

You know the Zingi17 were also killed in the camps and have notbeen reimbursed for any money they lost, or just a little bit. One timeI spoke up for the Gypsies in the marketplace. Some people werestanding up for the dead Kurds and I stood up for the dead Armenians,Zingis, and Jews—and they all said, “Well, Ruth. Why do you do allthat?” Yes, I was screaming loudly and the Zingis drove their cars beforemy door with their families—children and women—and were happythat a woman had spoken for the Zingis [she sort of laughs], becausewhoever does speak for a Gypsy? Nobody anymore. Yes, Sinti andRoma they call themselves.18 They were Sternenvolk, people of the stars.They went with their carts through the world and maybe they stole afew apples once. What’s the big deal? But they begged! Oh well, so?They were a traveling people. They are not comfortable because theydon’t adjust, don’t send their children to school, so they are notaccepted. They speak their own language and nobody else speaks theZingi language. Although the Gypsies did a lot of crap—criminalstuff—that has nothing to do with it. They are humans also. [Shelaughs.] I feel connected to them because they too were in theconcentration camps, and because they too went through such horriblethings. Whoever made it through so much suffering because of Hitler,to him I feel bound. Three years ago [1991] I was very political. Then,the Grünen, a political party, said to me, be more careful, yes? I tookmy money out of the bank once and said, “My entire money in silverso that theNazis, who are sitting on the top, won’t eat themselves fat.”19

Because the Nazis still sit today in the banks and everywhere, and theSS people have factories and so on here in West Germany. They areBollwerke, fortification against Bolshevism. I was only political to adegree, that is only in this year, otherwise not, but only with theprovocation that the Nazis were again blowing out the same slogans as

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in 1933. They too should have learned; otherwise it would haveremained quiet in Germany. Do you understand how I mean that? Ifelt challenged, provoked, because I told myself I was always quiet, Inever said anything. But to revert to fascism again? No, not again.

People were apolitical. They went to the election and did not knowwhat they were voting for. This is no excuse. I always went to electionsand have always thought about which party I will vote for here in theGerman Federal Republic [BRD]; now that we are a reunified Germany.This is all different, and they have already become more brazen. You cansee that in the press. They are unified again. They are already morearrogant in the press. [She says this twice.]

� � �

I still owe you an answer about what I thought about the Americans. Youknow, for me, America was something quite big. I had a GermanAmerican friend and she got a care parcel. I was allowed to eat some ofthe chocolate. But I didn’t know that we had been sent laxative chocolateand [laughing] the bathroom was busy all night and for me America wassomehow something really huge, if you ask me, yes, something over-whelming. What does one hear about America today? I mean about theteenage criminality, about the slums and so on.

For me, it was the most wonderful thing that so many groups livetogether in the United States. When I was sitting in the East, I alwaysthought, “How can I get into the American sector?” Do you understand?I first drove to the American sector in Berlin. It was a city divided intofour sectors. America was for me something very large. [She repeats this.]But also promising. It was the land of unlimited opportunities.20 Yes,just like you always heard, but now I know there are dark sides as well,naturally. That will always be the case in a large country. That’s how itis in Russia now. They are falling completely apart. And they are fallingapart within and are certainly trying to force through their dictatorshipagain and start a war because of that.When I was young, for me, Americawas something gargantuan. How can I say?

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I had not thought about emigration. I was young. I didn’t thinkabout it. I also did not say about Americans “you’re always so bad toblacks.” Other people have said this. I did not think that as a youngperson. We read Uncle Tom’s Cabin later on. I educated and informedmyself about each country through literature. That was a given for me.This way I also raised my boys to be international, but not going towardthe Communist train of thought [She laughs], that too is international.And the neo-Nazis call themselves international as well although theycurse the Turkish people. You see everybody calls himself internationaland I do that too. [She laughs.] But I really think this way: For me ahuman is a human. If he really proves himself to be a decent person, heis human. That’s that.

Emigration was not an issue because I could not leave my parents,and I didn’t know what there could have been for me in a foreigncountry.21 What would confront me there? I had to take care of myparents, had to send parcels, and I had my small income and living, so Ilived here. And then, before 1956, in April 1949, I came here toHamburg?—the Persil certificate had not been issued yet and then theNazis had diminished. Then everything was completely different. TheNazis only became stubborn and firm again when they were reallychallenged. Because here they had nuclear rockets standing, you know,aiming at Russia, everybody knows that, and the Nazis got alwayscheekier and cheekier. At first, when I came here it was not like that.Then I had to struggle with other difficulties. I arrived here and hadnothing. I had Igelit purse and Igelit sandals, that is not leather, it is someplastic, and one pair of sheer tights and one outfit and a few furs22—thatwas all, and a toothbrush and a Bible, and I still have the Bible. [She getsthe Bible.] I had it during my escape. This is my Bible, and that issomething I will not give away. One toothbrush, the Bible, the Igelitpurse and the Igelit sandals—those were my only belongings.

The German people had to be given a chance to establish themselvesout of the ruins after the war. This had to be. One felt bound to the Westand especially to the Americans who were rebuilding Germany. WithAmerican money we were built again and it was a humane act, I want tosay, and the best thing is that peace was maintained all these years. That is

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very good politics, very good politics. And Hohlköpfe [empty heads] areeverywhere, aren’t they? They have become so strong again with their Naziand SS ideas. It was contained in them; a thing that was passed on orinherited and it will stay that way. The people themselves have learned;the people have becomemore open-minded. I’m talking about simple folk.They have become more open-minded and more easily accessible, andthose in the higher positions, they feel strengthened in their spirit and theysee their spirit come back again. The bulk of the people act moreresponsibly than one may think. But the politics. Adenauer had no otherchoice than tomake politicswith theWest andwith themoney ofAmerica.West Germany has been rebuilt, and one shouldn’t forget this. But mostpeople are directly anti-American because of TV. Now they haven’t justheard about it but have also seen it. The people are manipulated throughTV. Everything that is reported, the people believe because it is manipu-lated, made believable; so they all believe. They don’t glean their knowl-edge from literature or from true insights into life.

Out of the ruins, Adenauer had no other choice than to behave likehe did and he couldn’t engage in any other [type of] politics; he also wentto Russia and made sure that the German prisoners were freed, thanksbe to God, and one cannot blame Adenauer for bad politics. Because inAustria, a Nazi was sitting in first position again, at once. You know,Nazis won’t die out because there was an entire force of them. Theyescaped to South America and they probably also live in North Americaand everywhere else. They are everywhere in the world. Nazis had to hideand cover their bad deeds. They hid everywhere and infected the people,no matter where they were. Anti-Semitism is in the whole world,especially in Russia and Poland. Everywhere. Not just in Germany. Themurder done in “factories” and the fact that it was programmed was onlyhere. And that with Goethe! But as I said in my political diatribe, onespirit alone is not sufficient for the entire people.

CHAPTER FOUR

RUTH WILMSCHEN

“In the Nazi years,I acquired an elephant skin and could

handle any kind of treatment”

�

I arrived alone at Ruth’s apartment building, a typicalwashed-out brick structure. Inside my footsteps echoed as Iascended the flights of stairs to her door. I do not recall any ofthese buildings having elevators—just as the subways hadneither flat ramps nor elevators. Older people had to walkdown endless stairs, gripping the rails. Those in wheelchairshad to be carefully rolled down steep cement stair steps. It wasobvious why few physically disabled people rode the subwaysor frequented apartment buildings; the German way of lifefavored the indefatigable in body and spirit. For survivors likeRuth, her sturdiness is her anchor.

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Ruth, a former schoolteacher, was a friend of Ruth Yost.Her apartment was compressed and compactly furnished. Shewore an orange wool jacket and matching skirt. An antiquecircle pin lay over her heart. Her thick, curly, reddish-brownhair stuck out all over her head like a helmet. Her mannerismswere jerky—she took her glasses off and on and thrust herhands through her hair. During the interview, she clacked herdentures through every sentence, often making her ramblingstories even harder to follow.Ruth sat at her kitchen tablewithcopious notes in hand, from which she read her historychronologically. She was insistent upon visual representationto accompany her narrative. She had carefully placed herpictures into numerous photo albums divided between Jewishand non-Jewish grandparents, which, along with her wallhanging, served to augment her identity split. The loomingtapestry of an apple tree, gray on one side and white on theother with various sized leaves and fruits, divided a wall. Sheflipped through pictures of grandchildren and her two daugh-ters and many pictures of her pesky poodle who interruptedus with whines, licks, and his paws scratching our legs. Ruthpredictably stopped midthought to converse with the dog,accommodating his behavior as if he were the prodigal son.

I noticed a menorah centered on a bookshelf, surroundedby quite a collection of primarily Jewish-centered books.1

Ruth ardently positions herself on the side of the victims, andlikeRuthYost, for a time, she spoke out against thoseGermanswho ignored the facts of Nazism or denied that the ThirdReich, when compared to other historical atrocities, hadassembled anything extraordinarily evil.

Money was a recurrent theme and obviously a veryimportant issue for Ruth. Other women mentioned financialruin and reparation loss, but none dwelled on money asintently as she. Postmodern materialism generated from TVculture and reparation money “unfairly” distributed is allenmeshed for Ruth. Both are tied to a nonrecognition or denial

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of the past, which has led to a troublesome relationship withher immediate family. Outsiders might see Ruth’s atypicalbehavior toward her granddaughter and son-in-law as intoler-ant; after all, her granddaughter was only thirteen years old,and her son-in-law had a new wife. Ruth has tiptoed uncom-fortably around their lives, whereas she would like to securetheir understanding of her history, to dent their consciousness,to make an impact on their lives. Instead, she yells, getsconfused, and despairs.

Ruth survived the deaths of her entire family; only agranddaughter remains. A seemingly common task, the takingcare of her dog, has helped her to copewith excessive tragedy.Ruth had written notes on a small legal pad in order to followher life in as orderly a fashion as possible; yet her conversationwas the longest and most scattered of all the women. By thetime I found the core of Ruth’s experiences during the ThirdReich gleaned from so much excessive, almost child-like talk,I wondered if she had unconsciously tried to muddle thenarration of her life. It seemed the more she tried to makesense of what she was saying, the more digressive andunpredictable she became in her conversation. Her notes,which were marked off with dates, were meant to ground herto the facts, but she did not follow them. Now and then shepicked up the sheets and tried to locate herself again at somepoint in the past. The anger toward her father, formerhusband, and son-in-law, each who tried to control her,contrasted sharply with her intense love for her mother, whosurvived Theresienstadt (a work camp) but later died in afreak accident, and her two daughters, onewho died as a childand the other in childbirth. The tyrannical elements ofHitler’spatriarchal machine were evident in the men in Ruth’s life:She never shook off their power despite her own success asan independent woman. Ruth had to get married because shewas pregnant and later, she discovered her husband had beenin the SS.

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Ruth’s responsibility to her mother kept her in Germany.She nursed her sick mother after her return from Theresien-stadt. As long as her mother needed her, Ruth felt compelledto remain at her side, even though she had the urge to flee.After her mother’s death, Ruth, despite her opposition to it,became caretaker for her father. She became extremely angrytoward her son-in-law after the death of her daughter, hiswife, Helga. Ruth did not have a close relationship with hergranddaughter, which she blames on her son-in-law, as henever allowed her to fully explain their origins to her grand-daughter. She remembers that her mother and her daughterHelga had a wonderful relationship, and Ruth simply wantedthe same bond between herself and her granddaughter. Ruthsuffers great difficulty trusting and understanding the behav-ior of others. The Third Reich symbolized for Ruth an acutehelplessness; the chaos it rammed into her world had far-reaching, long-term effects—she would never live the life ofher choosing.

� � �

I am so happy that you asked me what is hanging here in the middle ofthe wall. You are the first visitor to ask me about this. This is aMischlingsbaum, a tree for half-breed children. A dark side. A bright side.Gray as well as orange. This is aMasurischer Apfelbaum [Masuren appletree].2 You have to think about something and put it in this tree—allthe things that happened in your life. I didn’t have many good andimportant life events. I added to it, as you can see. I embroidered extrapieces that weren’t originally there in these empty spaces. Now I can seewhen this happened, that time as a kid, or that was a miscarriage. FrauYost laughed about it. Frau Yost asked, “Which is the Jewish side, thedark or the light?” She doesn’t have any sense for it. But this ismy life tree.

I was born in 1925, Ruth Ogrusch. My father had already been ateacher for two years in the elementary school, and my mother married

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him at eighteen. However, I came sometime later. My mother didn’treally have a job. She wanted to become a pharmacist at one time, butbecause of her early marriage she did absolutely nothing. It was also notplanned that I should come so quickly, however, you see I came, no? Thebeginning of my childhood was very good. My father’s parents wereworkers in Wuppertal. My mother was born of Jewish parents inWuppertal-Süd, a much richer area. Both grandparents were not happyabout my parents’ decision to get married because of their difference inorigin, but later my grandparents often were together.

I was not baptized when I was born. I remain, in theory, unbaptized.My parents were, as one says, “without confession.”My father came froma very religious Protestant family, but at seventeen my father went to waron his own volition and at nineteen had fully lost his belief in the lovingGod. He then had vast difficulties with his mother, my grandmother,who was religious. My father believed in nothing. My mother and herparents were not religious Jews. So we were neutral, one could say.WhenI was five, a good acquaintance came and said to my father, “Werner, letyour daughter be baptized.” “Why?” my father said. “Well, it’s better.”It turned out later that it was better if you had some Christian sacramentbecause perhaps you were handled differently by the Nazis. So at fiveyears old I was baptized. At the time, I didn’t understand it at all. I stoodthere as water was poured over my head, and suddenly I was Protestant,no? My non-Jewish grandmother was naturally very agreeable. Shedragged me every Sunday to the church. I was confused and because ofthat I became more involved in the Protestant religion later. I thoughtit was related to a special purpose, although it was only somethingsomeone else had suggested.

I can say that I had four loving grandparents. These are the twograndpas. [She shows their picture.] That is Opa David and that theother. This one [presumablyDavid] was amerchant and had a cigar shop,an affiliate of the famous Tabakbär inMannheim. He led theWuppertaldivision. The other grandpa was a civil servant. This grandpa also haddone a variety of things with his one son, the 200 percent Nazi, and myfather. I never grasped the pro-Nazism at the time. I knewnothing. Therewere only civil servants in my father’s family. I had two pairs of loving

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grandparents: one, so-called non-Jewish and the other, Jewish. Theyeventually got along very well; every week they went walking together.My favorite grandpa was David, my mother’s father—a unique andtotally fantastic man. It’s unbelievable howmany thousands of stories hemade up. Grandpa David, whom I loved so much, died in 1934. Godbe praised! For awhile we couldn’tmake sense of why he died—afterwardwe could. It was the best thing that could have happened. He wouldn’thave been able to stand what followed. In 1934 there was the firstGoering3 speech and Goering was yelling and started using words likeJudenschweine [Jewish pigs] and so on.My grandfather listened carefully.My father came into the room and said, “David, don’t pay attention. Hewon’t remain in power for a long time.” My father had always thoughtHitler wouldn’t last long. Yes, I apologize for my father because later hecould have acted against the deportation of my mother. I have to say itagain and again. He thought too well of this Hitler.

Grandpa David’s widow, Grandma Olga, moved to a single-roomapartment near ours. She was very healthy. She would have been ahundred had she not been deported and killed. She had some fear andalways said: “I am called for Eternity. We all have our time.” And thenmy father began to scold, “Olga, don’t talk that way. It’s not so bad.” Iheard that my entire childhood. Oma Olga already had conflicts withher fellow lodgers. Most of them were, unfortunately, Nazis. One mustbe lucky to be left in peace and quiet. GoodGermans existed. There werealso Germans who judged people solely by appearance (from pictures inDer Stürmer). My grandmother didn’t look especially Jewish. I have aphoto. Here are the Jewish grandparents. There are the non-Jewishgrandparents. I still have all of these. This grandpa was twelve years olderthan this grandma. There I am with my father. There I am as a smallchild with my mother. And these are my parents. That was after thecottage, the Nazis destroyed their weekend house. Without reason, Iknow now, but I don’t know the details. They took out the chimney andthe oven collapsed, and the whole thing burned.

[Ruth shows pictures drawn by her father.] My father’s family has afamous ancestor, the painter Adolph Menzel.4 All my other ancestorshave been either goldsmiths or painting teachers. But I didn’t inherit this

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ability. Here’s a picture of my father. He was a young teacher inWuppertal. One of his students came to school in black clothes. Oncemy father asked him the reason why he wore black. He said, “My fatherdied from pneumonia in a concentration camp.” Then my father said,“The fat Goering is the father of the concentration camps.” For thissentence he had to go into prison in August 1934. After four days hecame back. From that time on, my father developed anxieties.The school wheremy father taught was in a working-class district—KPD[Communist Party of Germany], SPD [Social Democratic Party ofGermany] and so on—and at that time there was nothing in the air abouthatred of Jews. [Ruth looks at her notes.] In the first year we noticedabsolutely nothing. Not at all. And then I started school. I didn’t attendthe school where my father was. They had fears I’d not be educatedproperly. They believed a child should go to a school other than wherehis parents taught. Later on, when I had been in the Volksschule[elementary school] for four years, I couldn’t, unfortunately, go on toGymnasium [college prep school] because at that time the NurembergLaws already had been instated. “Half-breeds of the first degree” couldn’tgo to the higher class. In 1935, when they enrolled me in the middleschool, called Realschule today, a few difficult times began. The school-master who was a definite Nazi came into the class. [Mimics in deepvoice]: “Who here is still not in the BDM [Nazi youth organization]?” Ialways stood up. Otherwise, everyone was in the BDM. That was that.Afterward the teacher said to the principal, “We know now that nothinghas changed. Must you ask again and again?” My class teacher waspleasant, but the principal, Knut von Horfe, was a Nazi. He insultedeveryone named Eva, Ruth, or Esther. [Mimics principal in deep voice]:“How can a German girl be called that?” That was really awful.

This Nazi headmaster made my life difficult as I was the only onewho wasn’t a member of the BDM, and so children also began to teaseme, which they did if somebody like me demonstrated in class they werean achiever. Later on, I wrote extra bad essays because I knew that highmarks would make someone jealous. In this class, there were also threeJewish girls. One of them was Hella Altgenug, who later appeared onHöfer’s Mittagsrunde as Hella Pick.5 She emigrated early and the other

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two, along with their families, were exterminated. I wrote to WernerHöfer to get Hella Pick’s address. I saw her in this Breakfast Circle withWerner Höfer. Do you know what this means? Werner Höfer wassuddenly unmasked as a Nazi and over decades he hosted this Presseclubthat was broadcast on various German channels. There were manyspeakers—Inga Deutschkron was always with Werner Höfer, at leasttwenty times.6We thought aboutWerner, that is someonewho remainedgood to the Jews. Suddenly, after many years, it turned out Werner is anold Nazi and had published his pro-Nazi writings. Naturally, youbecomemistrustful. Also this Hella Altgenug went right away to Londonalthough her parents owned houses. Imean, one could, if one hadmoney,escape from everything. You had to have money in order to flee and alsohave as many relatives as possible because you had to have guarantorsabroad. We couldn’t think about that at all.

In October 1937 my father received a letter saying that he shouldseparate from his non-Aryan wife. Otherwise, he would be forced toretire. It sounded mild; everybody thought he’d retire and go intoanother profession. My father said, “Divorce is out of the question. Asan old soldier, I should be able to keep my wife.”

My parents never had conflicts and my father would have never leftmy mother. My father immediately complained about his upcomingforced retirement and wrote a letter in protest. My father never wouldhave said anything against Nazis in his lectures. He would have beencareful not to do it.Hewas on his guard.He had always been very proper.My father reminded them that for four years he had given his bones forthe Germans in the world war as a first class and second class soldier.And he didn’t do that out of enthusiasm. Probably when he volunteeredhe was enthusiastic, but he was scarcely seventeen. I still have the officialletter sent tomy father from the second-in-command to the Führer.Hereis the paper. It says at the top NSDAP.7 It was by decree. He [Hitler]had not signed it himself. It says, “In your letter of October 5, 1937, youwant me to reverse our decision concerning retirement. According to theLaw of the Reconstitution, going back to work as a civil servant isdisallowed.” This law was established to remove people from the civilservice who were living in “mixed marriages.” That’s why nobody who

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had a Jewish wife was allowed in pedagogy. This law was established. Ihave it written down and I’ll read it to you: “I want to make the pointthat we have to follow necessary steps according to paragraph 5 and 6 ofthis law in order tomaintain the interests of the civil services.We decidedto retire you but this decision does not reflect any defamation.” [Ruththinks these words are justWortklauberei, quibbling.]

To put the letter in simple terms: All teachers who had Jewish wiveshad to leave the school. And now the “highlight” of the letter: “Becauseof basic considerations [meaning Jewish people are humans of lesservalue], I have to refrain from influencing the decision of the administra-tive office in these cases. That’s why I regret that I can’t do anything foryou under these circumstances.”

It’s an accident that I still have the document. Here it states that “inthe name of the government, I am replying in accordance with paragraph6 of the laws that govern the reinstatement of the job and civil duties ofthe Volksschule teacher, Weiner Ogrusch, that he remain in retirement.”I only want to say, some people from our circle of acquaintances, amasterclockmaker and shopkeeper, who were on the Board of Directors of afactory, divorced their “non-Aryan” wives for appearance sake. [Ruthimplies they did not legally divorce.] How it later turned out for all ofthem—whether they were deported or not—I don’t know at all. We hadparted ways. It worked out for one of the couples; they came backtogether. But civil servants couldn’t do that. Because they got theirmoney from the state, they had to register everywhere. Therefore, theycouldn’t easily say “Now I’m divorced” whether they actually were ornot. There were too many records. It wasn’t possible.

Wewere acquaintedwith somany familieswhodivorced, for example,but they weren’t families of civil servants. Married people get differentraises than unmarried people as civil servants; they are, for better or worse,dependent on the state. I have had a difference of opinion over this withFrau Yost. She said, “Be happy that you were born into a family of civilservants.” I ask, “How so?” We had a great deal fewer, how should I say,possibilities of doing anything against the Third Reich. And as I said, tomy shame, I must admit, many of us thought (and some verbalized), “Ah,that is temporary. Hitler won’t last too long.” To add to that, my father’s

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brother was a die-hard National Socialist. The break went through thefamily. That was terrible for my non-Jewish grandmother, very sad. Oneson spouted “Heil Hitler” and the other spouted nasty phrases againstHitler.My grandmother didn’t knowwhat was wrong. She escapedwithinher Protestant church. She had been through a lot. I grasped that onlyafterward; only later did I understand. Speaking of the non-Jewish part ofmy family, and my father’s brother, once Adolf Hitler visited Wuppertaland the whole family went to listen to him speak. My uncle, Hans, cameback seemingly in a trance because he stood very close to Hitler and sawhimself in Hitler’s eyes. My grandma said, “Hitler must be a great personwhen even Hans is enthusiastic about him.” I want to make the point thatthe Nazis had very easily influenced this part of the family. My grandmasaid, “Oh, Ruth. You’ll never be allowed to marry!” She was certain thatthe Rassengezetze [race laws] would endure. Uncle Hans responded, “Oh,sure, she can marry another ‘half-bred’ Jew.”

After my father received this “wonderful” letter that blew him outof the school profession, we had to evacuate the apartment because it wasa civil service apartment. These few months were not at all fine. Mymother said to my father, “Ich bin ein Klotz an deinem Bein. Hätten wiruns scheiden lassen” [I am a millstone around your neck. We should havedivorced]. It was dreadful.

Then someone in Düsseldorf at the steelworks union, a goodGerman, who continued to be so during the Nazi time, took care of myfather. He gave him a position as factory educator. My father had no clueabout how a factory operated, but his position was a teaching one, so hecould work with young people. Unfortunately, I don’t know who theman was anymore. If only he had come forward and wanted a Gutachten[favorable report] as somany did in 1945, I would have assisted himwithmy best kick and given him a report that stated he had not abetted theNazis. My father then “went aboard,” was well paid, and the stateminister of education granted us a half retirement. I can’t saymuch aboutfinances—at that time, we had great losses that were not financial—thatcame with the Gestapo.

Ruin really began before the so-called Kristallnacht in 1939.We stillhad a Düsseldorfer aunt, one of the many who later was deported never

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to be seen again, who had us take care of an apartment in Düsseldorf.When we had to move out, I went to another school and again there wasa Nazi principal. It was a tough break. The kids were talking about Jewsbeing unworthy of life, but you cannot think of the kids as evil becausetheir parents spoke this way at home. They influenced the kids. Theydidn’t use the word vergaßt [gassed], as it wasn’t popular then. I heldmyself back. Nothing else happened. I was told afterward, however, thatmy father had been somewhat craftier. He went to the headmaster andhad me registered as “mixed breed of the second degree.” This was theso-called “quarter Jew.” I asked him ironically in later years, “Whyweren’t you afraid? How did you do it?” He said, “Don’t ask. I did it.”Yes, he said that. The headmaster knew that earlier my father had beenin the teaching profession and that he, by “race arguments,” as they werecalled at that time, had been discharged. And then the headmaster said[she speaks in a low, mimicking voice], “We already have three half-Jewish children in our middle school.” My father said, “Under anotherclass of Jew, however?” My father said that. Yes, one shouldn’t, but thathad been only a formulaic lie. People like the principal who dealt badlywith you could be lied to. [Ruth apologized for the lie.] I was then “half-breed of the second degree.”

Then trouble began again with BDM. Unfortunately, I had badluck. I didn’t have a teacher who was friendly to the Jews, but rather anenemy. I had a woman teacher who was conceited, affected. She was 150percent Nazi, and naturally that was unpleasant. My grades suffered. Itdidn’t matter to me. I listened only to my father’s conversation: “Ah,later when you are in a profession, you will be a teacher.” I said, “Howshould I become a teacher? Where should I learn? I still can’t attend highschool.” He said, “Wait for it, wait for it.” He was right in the end. Yes,and now it became horrible in Düsseldorf. Perhaps it would have beenbetter if we’d stayed in Wuppertal.

That horrible November 9, Kristallnacht arrived. On that day, wehad to deal with all three apartments of our Jewish relatives. All three.At 5:00 P.M. I was at one of them and still nothing happened. They sentme in again and said, “Is everything still in one piece?” “Yes,” I said,“everything is there.” “Oh, you all are lucky. They have forgotten you.”

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I will never forget Fürstenwald 236. I arrived there about 5:30 P.M. Itwas still dusk. Everything was on the street, everything. I went up intothe apartment and nothing was there but a telephone in this wonderful,beautiful apartment.

My great-uncle Salli, the brother of my grandpa David, who, thankGod, had died earlier, had his violin hurled out the window in theSchadow Street in Düsseldorf. He went crazy and jumped out thewindow. They didn’t push him, as it was reported afterward in thenewspaper. I can absolutely not think about that.When I get toomuch—if I think about these days—I always have to pinch myself in the arm.They smashed not only musical instruments—grand pianos and regularpianos—but everything! It was horrific. That was November ninth. Myuncle Salli couldn’t cope with it. Not only in regard to his violin, butthis entire violation. He was dead after a few weeks. We had sent awayour aunt to Litzmannstadt. She didn’t arrive at all. It was the middle ofwinter andwe didn’t know.My father’s brother was in the railway stationservice in Litzmannstadt just at the time when the Jewish transport wasthere. Isn’t that terrible?Hewas aNazi who changed hismind. TheNazisgave him a revolver. Officially, he died doing his service for the Germanarmy and was shot by the partisans. However, that’s not true at all. Heshot himself. There were people like him, perhaps, who couldn’t look atit. Auschwitz wagons continuously drove in full and came back empty.He went through that for many years.

A decade later the Nazi headmaster, whom I mentioned, asked me tobe his witness for the defense. Imagine—me! He was thrown out of hisprofession because he was a Nazi. So he approached me to be the witnessand said, “Look here! You still know, Ruth, what I said to all of you inschool: ‘Go home peacefully and don’t look at the burning synagogue.Don’t join the riot. Go home quietly. It’s been ordered that there will beno more lessons today.’” And I said, “I don’t recall anymore if you saidthat.” That was such, such a tribunal. And he shouted, “Please. Here is mydiary. I can prove it throughout.” Indeed, the words stood there in hishandwriting, “The 9th of November,” blah blah. And then I said, “Oh,but you are capable of clairvoyance. Everything happened on the morningof the 10th and you want me to say the 9th.” He turned red. By this I

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discovered that he had falsified his diary with information that would havebeen viewed as a Jewish-friendly entry. At this time, he had already beenfired. He still had to wait a few years for his retirement. So it goes.Sometimes you are on the top, and sometimes you are on the bottom.

To come back to the actual time of Kristallnacht. We had to hidetwo aunts with us in the apartment. We had to send them away becausethey did not grasp what was wrong and that was a little dangerous for usbecause the tenants in the house picked up onwhat was happening. Theywere not all Nazis. One of the renters even listened with us to enemytransmitters. For us that was very dangerous. At the time, my motheralso cracked up. She said, “If only we had separated then everythingwould be different.” It was horrible. We hid them [aunts] four days, andfour days was too long.

I don’t know what my aunts did afterward. I do know they all livedin basement apartments in Germany. I know my aunt wanted toimmigrate to Lisbon. She had lots of relatives abroad. She had papersprepared and started to leave on a winter transport to Lisbon but neverarrived there. The Gestapo inDüsseldorf was known to be very cruel andwe had bad luck. If only we’d stayed in Wuppertal, maybe it wouldn’thave been so bad. The Gestapo didn’t have a special uniform. They weredressed fashionably. My mother had to go to St. Prinz Straße, I thinkit’s called, to the Düsseldorf Gestapo’s main headquarters, just so shecould show she still existed. They feared we would “dive under theEarth.” I cannot tell more about it. I don’t know more. When the rationcards entered into the picture one could imagine escaping, since this wasa reason to.Whenmymother was deported, she didn’t get any cards thatmonth. But when she had to visit the Düsseldorf Gestapo it was 1938,not even wartime. People who are trying to excuse Nazi behavior alwayssay that everything happened only during thewar, as if nothing happenedearlier. When my mother reported to the Gestapo, we were not at war.It was 1938, I could say again and again. The ration cards didn’t existyet. German people always said later, “Ah, that happened in the war.”What I’m talking about now is 1938. In 1939, you will be surprised, myfather was drafted because he had been a soldier in World War I. See,now it’s happened! His wife must report to the Gestapo and he’s drafted!

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It was a local defense unit, mainly older people, who went to France andso on. He was a noncommissioned officer and later became a sergeant.What do you say now?

My childhood was really good until they drafted my dad behindthe Westwall.8 He didn’t have to participate in the war even thoughhe was in the army. I want to think about the year it happened. Shortlyafter, my grandmother and mother were deported. My father was asoldier for Hitler and then his wife was deported! The Germans wereall completely unpolitical. I had been at the military base in Aachenoften. I was allowed to visit. The men were really not Nazi, rather, oldcommon soldiers. Later the major had to tell my father, “You aredishonorably discharged from the military.” It was not possible anymore for someone with a Jewish wife to remain in the military. Whenmy father was drafted, he sent small packages. They were in occupiedFrance and my mother was at home checking in with the raincoatedGestapo. It was a muddled time. My non-Jewish grandparents died ayear before. My Jewish Oma still lived in a small apartment inWuppertal and had to wear a star. That was a problem. People said tome then, “Young lady, be happy that your grandmother lives inWuppertal.” Nobody could say any more that I should be happy. Idrove specifically to Wuppertal. I deliberately went walking with mygrandmother with the Jewish yellow star attached to her clothes. Weexperienced things then. There was a public lavatory, a toilet that wasin the neighborhood of the cemetery where my grandfather was buried.Every time we went back to visit, my grandmother had to go; she hada weak bladder. She could not use the public toilet this time. A guywalked by and said, “Star-wearers can’t piss here.” Dreadful! Shecouldn’t go to the bathroom! When I was in my grandmother’s houseonce, the Gestapo came in and wanted to take all the appliances [radio,iron]. Then they sawmy grandfather’s medals. They only took the soapand left behind the appliances they had originally wanted.

When I continued to visit my grandmother, my father said, “Don’tgo toWuppertal!” I said, “Why? I am going there on purpose.We shouldbe lucky that she’s still alive.” I don’t want to blame it on my dad, buthe had to explain it to me in another way other than “no.” My mother

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was very sensitive. She cried all the time. She was happy that I visited mygrandma quite often. That was basically the way it was with Jews. Mymother didn’t wear a star because she was in a “mixed marriage.” If shehad, it would have made the situation even worse. The husband [Ruth’sfather] was a soldier in the West and the wife [Ruth’s mother] had towear a star? Inconceivable.

It was also the case that we were not informed. Grandma said shedidn’t want to be a burden to us. She absolutely feared visiting us inDüsseldorf. Sometimes we finagled to hide the star so it wasn’t seen.She was taken to an old folks’ home where old Jews, sick people, andeven those blinded in war resided. Just imagine. First the blind person’sdog is missing, and then the person himself is missing, and, in fact,dispatched in the same cattle car—freight car—in which my grand-mother was also dispatched. Between July and September 1942, shewas deported after a half-year together with the people in the old folks’home. Was she really one of them? We absolutely had no idea. Theywere gone when we came to Wuppertal.

Later my mother reproached us: We should have made inquiriesfrom the beginning. We couldn’t have stayed at the train station. Wewouldn’t have survived it. There’s a large memorial stone there now.Myson-in-law took a picture of my grandchild standing next to it. “Thatwas your great-grandmother. She was taken away.” The child found itvery interesting but she didn’t remark upon it further. Also, all the oldpeople were deported to Theresienstadt, and my grandmother could notwork there as a seamstress. When my mother was in Theresienstadt shediscovered that her mother was only in Theresienstadt for one monthand immediately was deported somewhere else in 1942. My grand-mother was moved. For that we had to give evidence later. We still couldnot put factual information on the gravestone. “When did your motherreally die?” we were asked. Then: “How do you know what the state ofyour mother’s health was?” They asked my mother! Namely, my motherwanted another reparation payment, but at no time did she receive it.She filed an application for an explanation of her mother’s death in orderto engrave something on the stone. Until that time, we could engrave“In September 1942 in Theresienstadt” and write under that “Missing.”

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We didn’t know at all what happened. No idea. Not one person returnedfrom that old people’s transport.

I just wanted to add, they called my father away to work at theWestwall, otherwise he would have been around in summer 1944 whenmy mother suddenly didn’t get ration cards any more in Düsseldorf.These cards were distributed; otherwise we could not live. But she didn’tget any. We had to go to the Gestapo. This Nazi says to my mother, “Itis just for your security, you have to leave and go to central Germany.”I hear his voice in my ear right now. I was there at the office. “Take thetickets for your furniture with you, as evidence of being bombed out.”A few days later Jews were sent to Leuna to work. By the way, manypeople later got reparation money who lived in central Germany at thattime, although nothing happened there in the Magdeburg district,Schönebeck, southwest of Berlin. [People who had stayed in less exposedareas did get compensation.] The Nazis started to uncover “mixedmarriages” from the West to send systematically to the Mid-East. If thewar had not ended who knows, maybe they would have gone further.

I was allowed to gowithmymother fromWuppertal toHagenwhenshe was deported. One blond-haired girl who looked quite “Aryan”flirted with an SS officer, maybe because she had thoughts of fleeing. InHagen people had to change the trains and this young girl and anotherwoman, a gardener, tried to flee but were caught. From then on the entiregroup was vilely treated with shootings and worse. First they weretransported to Leuna.When they arrived in Leuna, they didn’t have theirclothes any more but Drillichanzuege [canvas uniforms]. Every weekthese dresses had to be deloused, although they didn’t have any lice. Mymother always had deep, red stripes down her bare back because the SSsoldiers had fun mocking the prisoners by throwing the hot iron hangerwith “clean” clothes onto the backs of the nude women. From thistransport, my mother gathered twenty-seven “Jew stars” and moneybecause as she said, “There will come a time when nobody will believewhat happened. So, let’s keep this as evidence.”

My dad was released from the army because he wasn’t worthy. Wewere bombed out when the English army came.9 In Düsseldorf we werebombed out again and again. Everything was screwed up. Frommy point

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of view, we should have grabbed an opportunity to fake passports so thatmaybe my mother would not have had to go. This was in 1943. Shealmost didn’t come back. Nazis put drugs in the women’s food so mymother got an infection. Maybe she contracted it because they forcedstuff on her that caused menstruation cessation. Her group was notimmediately deported to Theresienstadt. Theywent toHalle-Angersdorf[in central East Germany, a suburb of Halle] and worked. Three peopledied there and nobody knew fromwhat.Mydad sentme toDessauwherewe had relatives from the non-Jewish side so that I was closer to mymother in Halle. I could visit and talk to her but I was observed byFlintenweiber 10 [largewomenwith guns] who spokewith a Saxon accent.It was the first time I had to eat a sausage made of fox meat. I alwaysthought, Now it will be over pretty soon. Soon it will be over. Thishappened right before Auschwitz was liberated. Then I thought, So nowit will be over soon.

Then my mother worked in an important war factory located inHalle-Leuna.11 Women had to work on milling machines withoutscarves for head protection, so that sometimes their hair got caught inthe machines and was yanked out. They worked there for two monthsand then they went to Theresienstadt in the beginning of January 1945,before the end of the war, can you imagine? That late! I didn’t expectthat at all. Had it been otherwise my mother wouldn’t have survived.Then I got a call in Dessau from a medical assistant: “Yes. Your motheris being deported but we don’t believe she’ll arrive alive.” A Nazi told methat. My mother had high fever and maybe mononucleosis, a bacterialinfection. Another deportee, a female physician from Prague Universityin Czechoslovakia, made the right diagnosis and gave my mother aninjection against mono [probably antibiotics] in a hut in Theresienstadt.Maybe she would have died in Halle had this physician not saved herlife. I believe in and stick by the last hope—and my mother survived.We got this message in June [the war ended in May 1945] becausesomebody wrote a letter home that we had to go to Theresienstadt. InAuschwitz they no longer had a camp since the Russians were alreadythere.12 My mother was kept in Theresienstadt until June. A typhusepidemic attacked Theresienstadt. She couldn’t come back, but we knew

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she was alive. That was the main thing. My mother enjoyed being withthe Russian soldiers because they didn’t rape these Jewish women. TheseRussians gave her food. After the liberation, my mother had to sit forfive weeks on the fortress wall at Theresienstadt. She came back lookinglike a dried-out lemon.

Because we failed to obtain fake passports, I had trouble with mydad. I blamed him; maybe I offended him as well, because we shouldhave come up with some better ideas to act against my mother’sdeportation. Eventually, I couldn’t locate my passport—everything wasbombed out. Perhaps we could have rescued my mother and otherrelatives with fake passports. My family scolds me for implying they areguilty. But why should I worry what I say now thatHitler is not in power?At least I can say what I feel. Most of the families were happy that it wasover: “The bums are out, fine!” I think about what Frau Yost wentthrough, going alone over the borders. My mother came back totallyexhausted and irritated. But she said, “Now forget everything quickly.”That’s what she always said. Old Nazis came by later on and wantedreports from my father—Nazis who had made our life so bad earlier inthe war. That’s why I scolded my father and said, “Why did you allowthem to enter the door?” I couldn’t understand. My mother said, “Wedon’t want to count an eye for an eye.” Mymother was awfully sensitive,and how can I say, she never did anything against the Nazis. I tell you,I was more upset and excited than my mother, although I was notdeported. I don’t know why. No clue.

I also don’t know why I stay in Germany, but where should I gowhen the entire family is gone? How and where should I go abroad? Icannot easily rebuild an existence.Many people askedmy parents to leavethe country. But there was a mental border too. My father was a civilservant. Every year these people got an increase in their salaries, andGermans don’t often want to take risks and go outside of the country.For my father it was safer to stay in Germany. Some of my grandfather’sseven brothers immigrated to Amsterdam, which was a bad choice. Theyhad to go in a concentration camp. One of them immigrated to Americain 1935, and I regret that I have no contact with this part of my familyoverseas. Why have they never looked us up? They went to Chicago in

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1935. No idea where they are now. America is too big for me to makeany inquiries. I have always thought about the Jewish relatives abroadwho haven’t come forward. The others all went to Holland and were putin the camps before my grandmother. The ones in Holland were takenaway in 1941, and my grandmother in 1942. The others had alreadygone. And then I was too old. If only I had still been young. I can’t sayI’m happy in Germany. Many people asked me why I didn’t emigrate.My life was too far along, so I couldn’t emigrate any more. But I neverfelt fine in Germany.

When my mother came out of Theresienstadt, she was sick and Inursed her for four years. At that time, I couldn’t leave. And then I madea mistake. Yes, I made a mistake. I married a German. That happenedas well. We’ll not talk about that. He was not Jewish. Not at all. Theopposite, unfortunately. He came from a family who really had likedHitler. It caused a separation in the family. I married, and after ten yearshe died. Even then I couldn’t go abroad. How should I do it? I don’t havethat much initiative any more.

Later on we got to know people who received tremendous amountsof reparation money. I was really excited about that. They should paythose people who had really suffered. [She means her family.] My daddidn’t take one single penny. But my father secured a good position asa school principal, which he always wanted during Hitler’s reign. Thenhe said, “Now I don’t want a penny.”He didn’t take anything or demandany money. Frau Yost doesn’t believe this. She said, “He must have hadtons of money to deny an offer!” No. She doesn’t believe me. Then hewas principal. Then he moved to Moers, where fox and bunny say goodnight to each other [which means it is a remote village], and I cared formy mother. It took many years until she recovered from her deportationand camp experiences.

My father had a social democratic way of thinking. For this reason,he has been called der rote Schulrat [red superintendent]. This area ofMoers was mainly Catholic, and his political attitude was an exception.The great work he did as superintendent was bringing together allvillage schools so that everybody, no matter his or her religion, couldattend all schools. Before that, separation ruled. In one school, which

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was divided into Catholic and Protestant parts, Catholics and Protes-tants had to use the same bathrooms. Whenever the toilets wereplugged up, students quarreled about whose paper—Catholic orProtestant—had plugged the toilets. Even these little problems myfather had to solve. He was proud to gather the schools together andhe was awarded with a Bundesverdienstkreuz [Federal Service Cross],but he made fun of it. It had no value for him, and he always feltsympathy for blue-collar workers in Wuppertal.

In Hitler’s time I was under the illusion that I could be a famoussinger because people told me I had a very good voice. That is why Itook singing lessons in Krefeld and Düsseldorf. I lived in Moers andtook care of my mother in order to make my dream come true afterHitler was gone. But then I made a big mistake and married. Oh, myGod. Nobody believes me about this. My father was seventeen whenhe started fighting in the first war without permission from his parents.Similarly, my husband was sixteen and wanted to be involved in thewar events, so he faked his mother’s signature and had to fight for theWaffen-SS, the weapons division. Even in the last days of war hebelieved in a German victory. He was overenthusiastic, was caught bythe Red Army and locked up for eleven years in a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. I didn’t know anything about this when I met him for thefirst time.

My father had been the boss, the school director, of my husband’selder brother, Willy, and they arranged the first meeting. Later I gotpregnant, and because my father was a principal, I had to get married. Iwouldn’t have gotten married, but my father wanted me to because itwas not easy to live with an illegitimate child. Since he was a principal,the relationships in the family had to be in order too, right? That was1951. We didn’t have the Pill then. I can’t forgive my poor dad becausehe was always involved in my destiny. Parents are destiny, aren’t they?An illegitimate child would have ruined my father’s reputation as aprincipal; otherwise, I would not have married. My father said, “Itdoesn’t matter who you marry.”

My husband, Bernd Wilmschen, was a Spätheimkehrer [returnedvery late from the war]. Later on I found out what horrific circumstances

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my husband had survived in imprisonment. They were locked in steelcupboards for days. Once I recognized a tattoo on his body, under hisarm, while at the swimming pool. It was the sign of theWaffen-SS. I didnot know that my husband had been a member of the SS when I marriedhim. We had been very intimate after two or three months, but I didn’tknow. Most men had been killed in the war. I was too young to thinkabout it. I thought, “What my mother likes, or at least doesn’t hate, isgood enough for me.” Now I think it would have been better to havetaken my child and said good-bye to him. I am not happy about myconscious decision to marry this man. It was a shock when I saw the signof theWaffen-SS on his arm. He wanted to tell me something, like couldI imagine how he could have killed civilians? But I didn’t think about itand he didn’t show me the sign.

I didn’t have a cordial relationship with my husband’s family, notbecause I had been half Jewish but because I “took away their son,” whohad just returned after eleven years. His family once invited my motherover and got along with her very well. So his family said, “If she is likeher mother, then we give permission for marriage.” My mother had thequalities necessary to reconcile all people. [Probably that’s why hermother hid the fact that Ruth’s boyfriend and later husband had been aWaffen-SS member.]

I had two children. This illegitimate child died at age four from anelectric shock in my parents’ apartment. In my parents’ apartment! Zack![Just like that!] We were celebrating my husband’s new job. My fatherpromoted him. Everybody said, “Now you got your bad luck. Now youhave only one daughter.” This daughter, Helga, I adored. Then myhusband andmother died. Guess howmymother died? Traffic accident.There is no justice, is there? A soldier in theBundeswehr [German FederalArmed Forces] had leased a Cadillac and he wasn’t familiar with the caryet and even on a normal street he hit my mother. She took walks in thisarea. That’s unbelievable. That beats everything! She had survivedeverything. For my father it was horrible when she got hit by a car. Hedidn’t even visit her in the hospital. I went to the hospital everyday. Itwas hard because my mother had a fractured skull and it was difficult forher to breathe. My father didn’t want to see his wife’s misery, which was

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astonishing to me—a man who has survived two world wars and is notable to accompany his dying wife.

At the moment of death, I was there. I couldn’t take my daughterto her grandmother when she was in the hospital. Later, whenmymotherwas dead, my daughter took offense because she wanted to see hergrandmother again. My mother and daughter, Helga, had a wonderfulrelationship. It’s the evil irony of history, isn’t it? But in those days whenmy mother’s father died, we said, “Oh, the poor guy, why did he haveto die?” He would not have survived the Nazi horror. They both shouldhave had more years to live. They died in the prosperity of their lives.

Before my mother died, my father told me, as he had during theThird Reich, “Now you’re going to become a teacher.” “How?” Iresponded. “Withmymiddle-school education?” Adenauer gavemeDM5,000 as a gift for the fact that I was not allowed to study. Can youimagine only DM 5,000! I was hampered in my professional educationand got only 5,000 for that. I spent this money for two vacations on theSpanish island Teneriffe.

Examinations began for especially talented people. You had to workvery hard to pass these exams. It was not like this: You are the daughterof the principal, so you automatically are admitted. Inmy second attemptI got admitted, although it was no replacement for the Abitur.13 Todaynobody talks about that anymore. I didn’t want to become a teacher thatbadly. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I lost a bit of my mentalstrength due to the war events. Actually, I was quite old at the time ofthese special examinations. I was twenty-nine when I was told to start acollege education.

I studied in Kettwig and one of my teachers kept saying “We haveto learn from the past so that the future will never be like the past.” Hehammered this in twelve times a day—it was more than clear. I had toundergo a Begabten-Sonderprüfung14 in Dortmund in order to become ateacher. This was a special exam for talented people because in this timenobody had any grades from high school or college. The examinees weregiven a story or a book on which to write a little essay. The book’s titlewas Saisonbeginn [Start of the Season] by Elisabeth Langässer. This bookwas just right for me because it dealt with Jewish history. Other

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examinees complained about the choice. One episode in this book wasa big obstacle for most examinees, but not for me. It was about a littlevillage that had a crucifix at its entrance. In 1937 there was a big crowdof workers gathered around this crucifix doing construction and no oneknew what was happening. The next day there was a big sign next to thecrucifix: Juden unerwünscht [Jews not welcome]. The other fifty-fiveexaminees felt unable to write much about this story, but the professorswanted them to write down their personal opinions about it. I didn’thave any problems with this subject matter.

The next examination day I did well on a passage from Goethe. Ionly had trouble in the geography part of the exam, which I almost failed.In history I did a good job. I knew a good deal about the WeimarRepublic. Finally I got admitted and studied education with many veryyoung people. At first I didn’t have much fun. Later I could take classeslike philosophy. I was very enthusiastic about it because it was a fairlynew subject for me.

I started to study in Kettwig upon Ruhr without permission. I gotpermission when I was in the third semester. Usually we had to study sixmonths, but after the fifth semester we were told, “Because of the lackof teachers, whoever has enough self-confidence and courage can startteaching now.” Zack Zack! I was a teacher.

The first class I taught was in 1958. I always had a double-sized class,which was a big mess. My father complained a bit that I spent anexorbitant amount of time preparing for classes and taking care of thechildren. At this time my father had retired and was with me because mymother had been killed.

First, I had to work very hard. I grasped that because I was raised ina teacher’s family, teaching must be something “innate.” I could dealwith the little kids in elementary school very well. I was happy there fora few years. I felt a sensation in my life—that this was a positive change.

Then when my daughter was older she fell in love with a guy whowas raised in an old Nazi family. That was a bad omen. It runs throughour family—the past. My daughter and her husband gave birth to aplanned child. Everything was planned exactly. My son-in-law was stilla student andmy daughter had worked for a long time in a rehabilitation

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center for disabled people in Düsseldorf. My daughter got her husbanda job in this center as well, although he didn’t like disabled people thatmuch. He is excessively intellectual. My daughter was pregnant for thefirst time. Four days before the birth she went to the hospital inDüsseldorf-Gerresheim, known as the hospital for Cesarean sections. Ididn’t know anything was wrong beforehand.

Four days before birth she called me and said, “The baby is in thecorrect position, but I want to go to Gerresheim since there is ‘rooming-in,’“ the babies are next to their mothers. Then they did the C-sectionand, the physicians can’t explain this, she got septic shock. The child wasthirty-six hours old and my daughter had to go into the intensive careunit. She had to stay one week like a living corpse. Everyday I visited andwatched her hair become grayer and grayer. Horrible. I couldn’t go anymore. On the last day a vessel burst and they transported her fromGerresheim to the university hospital [in neurology] in the city ofDüsseldorf, Friedricksstraße. Later a Vietnamese doctor told me that onthe way everything burst. She had bandages everywhere when she was inthe university hospital and even my son-in-law couldn’t see her. He justtold the doctors: “Do me a favor, don’t open her again. Don’t do anoperation if there is something wrong.” At 2:00 P.M. the doctor said,“Until tonight we’ll keep the tube there to the heart circulationmachine.” My daughter was a machine. After this last visit we went to acafé and thought about the cemetery where we wanted my daughterburied. Punctually at 8:00 P.M. the doctor called and said, “Cardiacarrest.” Horrible. For us relatives, horrible. Then we got a detailed reportabout the medical diagnosis that was called “professional blunder.” Fouryears later Peter Beauvais produced the movie, Der Kunstfehler [profes-sional blunder], in which he changed my daughter’s character a fraction.The woman who died in the movie already had kids and the setting wasa different hospital, but he got his data from my daughter’s case.

That was my fate. I gave birth to two daughters. Both are dead. Mymother had a strange death after having endured the concentrationcamps. Is there any purpose in my life? At best were the times I was agrade-school teacher. I was a teacher with my heart and my soul. Myfavorite grades were first and second. I think I actually accomplished

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something in those years. But, since then, I’ve totally degenerated intopoor mental shape. They gave me this dog after my daughter died. Iasked, “What should I do with this dog?” “Here, read,” they said, “thisis the dog’s birth certificate—12th of May”—which was, coincidentally,my daughter’s birthday as well. I said, “Okay. Give the dog to me.” I wasstill a teacher, but I applied immediately for early retirement. Thisapplication was accepted after six weeks. I could have worked four moreyears. That’s why I don’t get my full pension now.

My son-in-law got married again to a terrible woman with whom Inever got along. That’s why I moved to Hamburg. I could not remainany longer in Düsseldorf. I don’t know many people in Hamburg, butI think that Hamburg is much more Weltoffen [cosmopolitan], so thatpeople do not develop prejudices against other people very quickly. I cancompare it to the little town of Wuppertal, which has many narrow-minded people who said: “Our ancestors hated the Jews, the Jews havealways been our enemies, and Hitler is just doing what everybody wants.”

Before I moved to Hamburg, when I was still a teacher, I used togo shopping in a little market. The children in grade school next tothis shop knew that I had a granddaughter. Once I met my son-in-law’swife and my granddaughter sitting in her shopping cart. The shopowner said, “Oh, you are here, Frau Wilmschen.” My grade-schoolkids were screaming “Frau Wilmschen, look, your granddaughter.” Assoon as the new mother heard that, she ran away although she was notfinished with shopping. I couldn’t deal with that in my currentcondition. After all, I took care of my granddaughter three quarters ofa year before this new mother appeared. My son-in-law and I sharedthe daily care of my grandchild. And I love kids. When they turn ten,eleven, or twelve, this love for kids decreases, I would say. I couldn’tvisit my granddaughter for two years and five months. This alsohappened. And suddenly everything was fine again, and right now theywant money from me to rebuild their new house. I responded, “I wantto be selfish just one time,” and “I have found in my old days a niceold man who has a grandchild as well.” From this letter on, there wasno contact. Out! But I am not that desperate about it. My granddaugh-ter writes me letters. I don’t want to meddle in the child-parent

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relationship. That’s not good for her. But her handwriting is exactlylike my daughter’s. She writes, “I will have my confirmation soon. Howmuch do I get?” Money. This kind of stuff I get in her letters. Shereceives nothing else from her parents. Money, only money. But she islike that all the time. When she visited my flat, she said, “But thispicture I will hang somewhere else.” I responded, “What exactly areyou talking about?” Imagine. She is thirteen years old and thinks abouthowmy furniture might be rearranged when she lives in this apartment,assuming I’m going to die soon. My daughter was totally different. Shewas sensitive. Whenever she opened her mouth to say something, shethought about it beforehand. She thought, “How might this be takenby the other person? Am I too rude?” She didn’t inherit this character-istic from me, I have to confess. My daughter was absolutely loved inthe home for disabled people. Two hundred sixty-two people came toher funeral. They all couldn’t believe her death and had not expectedit. I tried for a few years to find my daughter in my granddaughter.Here is a picture. Sometimes she looks like my daughter here togetherwith her two stepbrothers. She looks like my daughter [shows herpicture], but she inherited her father’s character; otherwise, shewouldn’t act as badly as she does. Her new mother talks about moneymorning until night. Of all the friends who visited the family when mydaughter was still alive, a quarter of them still come. They couldn’tmanage her death. They think like I do. They think always, It’s rubbish.If she is not alive any more, she is not alive. I have so many photos.

My granddaughter was taken away frommewhenmy daughter died.I never understood that because I had bought children’s furniture for mygranddaughter and only sometimes from Friday to Monday was Iallowed taking care of her. My son-in-law said to me, “It is just the littlepiece of Helga (my dead daughter) that you want.” I am confident thatno other woman took such good care of my granddaughter. Thepediatrician asked my son-in-law, “Do you want me to prescribe amother for your daughter?” Finally my son-in-law married this womanabout whom I’m not happy. I think he is very smart and had contactwith many beautiful and smart girls but so eine [such a one]! From mypoint of view these other girls were smart enough not to marry my son-

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in-law. His new wife is simply horrible—she can not even get along withher own parents.

It is terrible for me that I am not loved as a grandmother. I thinkthis is because my son-in-law has never had a lovely grandmother. OnceI said to him: “What kind of a man are you?” Fortunately, Helga is nolonger alive and doesn’t have to handle this husband.

When my granddaughter was five years old, she drew a pancake ona sheet of paper, separated it into four parts and later into eight, andasked me, “What am I? One-eighths or one-quarter?” Somebody musthave told her about her Jewish origin, and she didn’t know what one-sixteenth was. Her father listened to this conversation and said “Quatsch[That’s rubbish]!” I was angry about his indifference, and my grand-daughter never asked me again about her origins.

The times I mentioned were between 1961 and 1971. These tenyears were especially rough. I lived a lonely life in these years. Althoughit sounds stupid, I realized that my problems and experiences didn’tattract other people that much. And when I said something, theyresponded, “Your current problems are enough. Don’t focus on oldones.” Then my daughter died and I thought, Jetzt, gehst du ganz vor dieHunde [Now I’m going to the dogs]. I myself wondered about it. I mettons of people who either had to cover up something as far as the past isconcerned or did not care at all about history. A few times I started tojoin different clubs, but whenever they talked negatively about Jews Icould not just sit there and listen to the scolding about Jews. I alwayshad bad luck with these clubs. At least five or six times. This bad luck, Iknow for sure, followed me; it was always around, sticking to me. Lateracquaintances said, “Aah, you are not involved in anything, you live solonely.” I was happy to be in my school.

Unfortunately, after my mother died, my father was helpless so Ihad to take care of him. I lived with my dad for six and a half years.Sometimes, under these conditions, the relationship between my littledaughter and me suffered. She was sensitive. Often I have a guiltyconscience because, frommypoint of view, I didn’t pay enough attentionto her. It is not easy handling an old father and having him at home. Ihad no choice since my father wouldn’t have survived in a retirement

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home. He always wished for a fast death, which he got. He died from aheart attack. In my family, nobody has ever been ill for a very long time.Either they died from being killed in concentration camps or from caraccidents or heart attacks. My relationship with my father became moredifficult when he got older. My father was jealous even of my dog. Hesaid, “For your dog you go to the doctor, but for me you never pick upmedicine.” The older people are, the more attention they want you topay them. I got to know some Italians who lived in my house for quitea while. These friends were born in Iscia and had no clue about politicsbut were very nice. They realized that my father was complicated anddemanded too much from me, so they called him el commandante! Ialways had a better relationship with my mom, who always said, “It’sgood to have you around, but I will never live in your apartment. Let’shave separate apartments and meet as often as we can.”

I could compare my relationship to my daughter Helga with mymother’s relationship tome. I think both relationships had been sincereand tender. I think I was more energetic than my mother. I was veryconsequence-oriented in educating my daughter. When she didn’tclean her room, I put all her stuff from the desk and shelves onto thefloor so that the room was a mess and she had to clean it. My motherhad a good friend to whom she talked openly and honestly. When shedied I met this friend at the funeral. He cried buckets and said to me,“Your mom loved you more than anything else and she thought youoften act stronger than you actually are.” Maybe the fact that I was asingle parent and also a teacher made me stronger. Sometimes I thinkI was despotic but my daughter never blamed me for that. Wilmschenpeople aremore gentle and soft rather than strong. Evenmy SS husbandhad been gentle. My first daughter had a quirky violent temper.Although I was, in general, a pleasant child, sometimes I was evenboring for my mom. Later, in school, I became a little too brazen. Mydaughter inherited my mother’s good nature.

I could come to my mother with every problem, although mymother thought I had inherited being choleric from my father. Butbecause I don’t like people yelling at me, I didn’t yell in school when Iworked as a teacher. With my mother I had a wonderful relationship.

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With my father, I don’t know. Maybe we are too similar. Only once didI have trouble with my mother, but she never beat me. My grandson isstill beaten by his father because his father was beaten in his childhood.I further believe that my daughter would have avoided having herchildren hit, but the new mother doesn’t care. Ruth Klüger writes in herbook about hermother being neurotic.15 I agree.Many people developedmental illnesses as a result of the deportation and the Nazi cruelty. Theanti-Semitism and propaganda made life within the Jewish family evenworse because nobody foresaw what could possibly happen to them.

I would like to talk about Mischlinge. I wonder about people’sinterest in your book because Americans are usually just interested intheir history. I am curious about the shape, contents, and context of yourbook about Mischling history. Will it be a mixture of novel anddocumentary? Or more superficial storytelling piece like the work ofJohannes Mario Simmel.16 I don’t think it’s a good idea to put historyinto a novel because people wouldn’t believe it. Ralph Giordano’s novelDie Bertinis has been very surprising and maybe risky because nothinghad dealt with Jewish history before, but Giordano also includedPhantasie mit Schneegestöber (fictional accounts). Besides this, people arecomplaining about Giordano’s political attitude, that it was similar tothat of the Communist party before 1946, but he denied this later. Since1961 Giordano has made efforts to clarify events and inform the publicabout Jewish history. I can’t say there was a distinction made if a man orwoman was Jewish. I don’t know people I could compare because amongmy acquaintances only the women have been Jewish. I don’t think Jewishmen have been more resolute than women in terms of action andemigration. All Jewish men I know—my mother’s uncles—have beenvery soft. Of all the people I know, the women have been dominant overtheir Jewish men. In my family, my father happened to be dominant.Sometimes my mother exerted a strong will like when this new shorthairstyle [Bubikopf] became modern and she went to the hairdresserwithout asking her husband.

As far as Mischlinge, my friend Frau Yost is slightly disturbed. Sheis scattered. Frau Yost always acts unbalanced after she has talked to otherpeople about the past. I said, “Don’t do it. Don’t go crazy because we

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have to know that the past happened.” Well, without her knowledge Icalled Dr. Loeffler although I shouldn’t have. I don’t want to meddle,but Frau Yost always screams “Hallo” in her phone, “I can’t hear you.”Nothing was actually wrong. I called the office for intervention. Then Iwent to her house, rang the bell, and she didn’t realize anything. Dr.Loeffler didn’t say that I called him. I don’t know him very well. I saidto him, “It’s your patient. I just wanted to tell you.” The day beforeyesterday he went to her, that’s what she told me on the phone. I wasafraid. I have to visit again. She always says: “I admire you. You’re astrong personality, that you can live alone with all your memories.” Ialways make jokes. What should I say—“I’ve got a dog, I talk to him.”That’s a bit strange, but I don’t knowwhat I will do when he dies. I thinkI’ll travel everywhere. I have to take my mind off things. Ruth has a niceoldmanwho always scoldswhen she talks about the Jewish past, althoughhe had a Jewish grandmother. I feel guilty that she became sick again.She couldn’t talk to anybody about her life all these years, not even withher life companion. She really suppressed her thoughts. But I didn’tknow that. When I told her about me, she started to talk. Dr. Loefflerprescribed this therapy: to write down her life. She didn’t take that verywell. She endured many predicaments. Russians raped her—horrors likethat. My experiences are minor compared to hers. Yes, this type oftherapy takes time: She told me she’s going to quit. A day beforeyesterday. She’ll quit it and I shouldn’t give her any books to read. I toldher about Hecht’s book, but she won’t read it. It is not necessary for her.She lived her own similar experiences. I responded, “Don’t I know betterthan anybody else that you had these experiences?” That’s why now Ionly bring her funny books. If you have to describe these experiencesprecisely, and you have to remember them, it is very hard. That happenedtome in 1988 aswell. I went to a play in theUniversityTheater. I thoughtI could get rid of all my bad memories by watching this play. SuddenlyI became sick. My skin was enervated; it was so numb that I would nothave reacted to a pinch. I don’t know how it happened. Actually I didnot repress anything. I always openedmymouth and saidwhat I thought.

I know about anotherMischling, Ingeborg Hecht. A few years agoshe came to a bookstore to read in Bad Bevensen, a spa near here. Only

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four people, including myself, showed up. Four people! The rabbi wasvery disappointed. We thought there’d be a crowd. A bookstore ownerasked her to come on behalf of school classes, from middle to highschool, and there was not a single class. I said, There’s no interest here.No interest. If the Germans say they are interested. . . . I read the book.I lent it to someone for half a year and haven’t gotten it back. But Ihave it in my head. My son-in-law read [Hecht’s] book and immedi-ately complained about it. For him, the main point was that Ingeborg’sparents had marriage trouble before Hitler, not just later because ofpolitical reasons. That is why they got divorced and her father wasdeported later.

I got to know another woman who had been half Jewish andwanted to be friends with me. I trusted her a lot and told her storiesfrom that time. I was also wondering why this lady had trouble withall her siblings although everybody was still alive until one brothervisited and said, “She was the only Nazi in our family.” That was verydisappointing to me, and another reason why I live in seclusion, whymy social life is restricted. This “friend” who said she had a hard timebeing half Jewish told me that she had to live in East Germany with afalse passport in order to remain unknown. She talked to me in arestaurant and I told her my experiences honestly, maybe a bit tooloudly, as my friend said, “Be quiet. Don’t talk too loudly.” I answered,“Why? Does it happen again that we are not allowed to say anything?”I met with her until her brother told the truth about her. That washorrible for me. I was ashamed of all “mixed” people because of thisone bad example. Another Jewish friend of mine told me about theJewish community and how people in it did not help her when she hadfinancial difficulties. They had said, “If your persecution would havetaken place in the Western part of Germany, you would have gottenWiedergutmachung [reparations], but since you came here when youwere sixteen years old after the war, we can’t help you.” She said, “Idon’t like the Jewish community’s perception. Just because I didn’twant to be a believer, the Jewish community denied aid to me.” Thisfriend also told me, “I don’t want to know anything more about thattime.” I wanted to borrow a book for her, Briefe an meine Töchter

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[letters to my daughters] about a mother who expected her deportationand wrote her experiences down. My friend said, “I don’t want to readthis. I lived in that time.” I am interested in communicating with otherhalf-Jewish women with whom you have talked. Half-Jewish peopleare getting very old—friends of mine, Evelyn Kurnecke, Inge Meysel,Annagrette Schropsdorf.My “false friend,” FrauHellmann, said, “Thatis because we have two kinds of blood.” I responded, “Hey, listen, doyou want to confirm Hitler’s theory of races? Shut up!”

My son-in-law said, “Why don’t you write down all your stories?” Iask, “For whom? For one granddaughter who maybe wants to read itsomeday?” No. My granddaughter is too superficial. Maybe she isn’tready to think about this difficult history. On the other hand, to writedown experiences makes you free. I don’t expect my granddaughter tobe introspective. She is very materialistic. Once they visited me and wedidn’t have anything to talk about until my granddaughter switched onthe TV.Her mother said, “This is the preadolescent phase, don’t worry.”But I’m particular about this. I decided to separate frommy family a bit.My son-in-law sends me newspaper clippings about World War II.Sometimes he is only pretending to be interested in my history. I doubthe’s interested in me, otherwise they would write me more letters, forexample, now that people talk about Auschwitz. My grandchildren arematerialists. I have a friend inWuppertal with two well-loved sons—oneis more intelligent than the other. The intelligent son, Udo, had agirlfriend fifteen years ago called Gabi who was a nurse. When mydaughter died, this Gabi started dating Markus, my son-in-law. Myfriend told me that Gabi has only two aims in life: a husband with a bigpension and her own house. Maybe that is why I have prejudices.

In 1989 I went to a seminar at the university, and I gave a speech.What I experienced was horribly difficult for me. I had tears in my eyeswhen I saw how the young people had a genuine interest in what I wassaying—really genuine. I wasn’t used to that. I told stories about myexperiences and felt close to the youth. It was completely fantastic. Inthe middle of my lecture, I was affected deeply by the response. Thisgood feeling didn’t last long. A few weeks later I was sick. Suddenly theentire seminar was temporarily cancelled because the Gypsies, the Sinti

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and Roma, were here. They felt cheated. They didn’t want to talk aboutmy problems any more but theirs. We couldn’t do the seminar where wewanted to do it, but where the Gypsies wanted to, in the school in theKarolina suburb. They didn’t want to make any distinctions betweenJewish people and Sinti and Roma.17 They thought their situation wasstill awful in the present. Many attendees were unhappy that the Sintiand Roma threw everyone into one pot. This controversy over theseminar overwhelmed me. I was mentally distraught. One guy therewrote a doctoral thesis about Jews, especially the Harburger Jews. Heeven owned lampshades that had been made out of Jewish skin. I don’tknow where he got them. He was married to a half-Jewish woman, andhis parents gave him a book from a priest when he was ten years old. Thispriest saved many Jewish children. This is one guy educated in tolerance,especially as he had read this book at such a young age. The professorwrote the book about the lampshades. There was uproar against it. “Howcan you write this?” The professor himself couldn’t get a job in the Westbecause he was collaborating with the Communist party in the East. Hewas blacklisted professionally. I told them in my speech about my dadand the loss of his job, and this professor said, “Yes. You can comparemy case to his.” One woman stood up—I don’t know her name: “I mustleave this seminar. How can you compare these two cases? A workprohibition because of Communist attachments and the Nazi policiescannot be compared.” By the time I left, this seminar had burst at theseams. It was good I participated, but from then on I didn’t attendanything else related to this topic. I stayed to myself. My contributionto political purposes ended. What is the point if even your owngranddaughter says it’s nonsense?

My son-in-law wanted to reprimand her for the negative words shesaid to me, but he didn’t. In order to teach his children about the Nazitime, they went to the train station frequently. It didn’t make sense tome. The people in Wuppertal built a huge monument at this trainstation. My son-in-law took his four-year-old son to this station, tookpictures, and told him about the trains to Theresienstadt. His kids didn’tgrasp the whole picture. Every time the little boy sees a train now he says,“Oh. Are there Jews inside?” You can’t tell a four-year-old child such

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stories with complicated subtexts. He told my real granddaughtersomething incorrect, otherwise she wouldn’t say, “Go away with yourSpastics [craziness] and stories about your paranoid people, the Jews.” Iwas totally crushed. After that, her godmother took her to see Schindler’sList.Obviously, there are people who still think about the Nazi time, buther own parents would never have taken her to the movie. She wrote aletter to me and said, “Go to this movie and take a bed sheet with you.”I complain aboutmy granddaughter who toldme I have to take a blanketto Schindler’s List.Why? Towipe away the tears, or because I’ll fall asleep?A thirteen-year-old girl has to be able to think about things before sheactually says them. She doesn’t think about how we ourselves wentthrough all of what she watched. She called and I said, “Kerstin, whyshould I go? What I experienced for myself, I don’t need to see on film.”She kept asking her godmother “Is it really true?” And since then, thingsare a little different. She’s thirteen and I don’t know if she’s for or againstcommunication between Jews and Christians. But she’s as superficial asher stepmother is. They think, “It’s a long time ago, so don’t whine aboutit all the time. In the meantime, other horrible things have happened.”You hear that all the time.

There’s a Jewish synagogue that was recently built by the Jewishcommunity in my city. I am not happy because the visitors find theacoustics insidemuchmore important than the history of the synagogue.My grandmother lived here fifty years ago when the Nazis kicked herout of her apartment. People say, “Wewant to go there and talk to Jewishpeople.” I answer, “If you want to talk to Jewish people, talk to me. Inthe synagogue you won’t find anybody who could tell you about Jewishhistory anymore.”

The Germans have no interest. That’s the German mentality. Thatwas the case before the First World War and before the Second WorldWar. It’s always been that way. This can only be explained very badly toan American. I also can’t explain it to a Swiss or an Italian, who says,“What are you talking about?” I don’t speak about hate, I speak aboutindifference. I speak from Ralph Giordano’s work. Do you know him?He wrote Die Zweite Schuld der Deutschen [The Second Guilt of theGermans].18 I operate around the second guilt of the Germans. The big

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indifference of the Germans. In the classroom, when I was a teacher, Iwanted to tell stories about my experiences during Hitler’s regime, butmy boss says, “Ah, that’s not so important. You can’t give history lessons.You are too emotionally invested. You can only teach German andarithmetic.” I wasn’t even permitted to teach history and politics. I wasnot allowed to relate to the children what my family and I and elevenmurdered relatives endured. He said [imitates man in low, authoritativevoice], “No, that, that is no longer interesting.” Today you hear “Das istSchnee von gestern” [that’s old stuff]. Why? Today there’s interest inYugoslavia and, above all, in those who were banished—evicted fromEast Prussia and Poland. That’s of interest—the other is not anymore.So I said nothing more to my school children.

I had another experience while in a subway train with my grand-daughter. A young man told a friend about going to a speech with thetopic “Never Forget Auschwitz.” Another old lady listened to them andsaid, “Again and again the same topic. It’s all just exaggerated.” I wasvery upset about the woman’s twisted perception and yelled at her thatit’s true people were killed by gas in Auschwitz. The lady yelled back andthe young man, who was the reason for this yelling match, asked me,“OhmyGod, did you have a similar experience?”The other lady couldn’tcalm down and other people supported her more than I. That is why Iam very aggravated over people’s indifference to these problems. Mygranddaughter tried to hold me back and told her parents at home,“Grandma is hysterical.” Once I got together with Frau Yost and tookmy granddaughter along. She seemed very bored with the meeting. Ithink she seems indifferent to my history. For this reason, I don’t careto write anything down.

I am very concerned about today’s youth, which basically think thesehistorical episodes are just old stories and no one wants to know aboutthem. I frequent cafés where little plays are performed. If anybody sayssomething about or against Jews, I react very hyperactively and yell atthem, somuch so that a Czechoslovakian woman toldme that I wouldn’thave a positive impact on other people if I couldn’t be more tolerant. Italkmore often to younger people in their forties because I amnot willingto talk with older people about that time. They are more likely to mix

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up historical data or to distort it.When older people realized that I talkedoften to young men, they said, “Oh, she is looking for a young lover!”

I feel like an outsider. I have the right to be an outsider because Ihave been disappointed so often.My son-in-law accusedme twenty yearsago of never going out, and basically I had withdrawn into a snail shell.Finally he convinced my daughter that he was right. I like to be alone.Even when I was a little kid, my mom recognized: “You play best whenyou are alone. If your friend is here it’s not so much fun.”

Do I feel excluded? [Thinks for a while.] Yes, I do. But this is a“mixed children” thing. Frau Yost feels similarly. But God gave me thepower to survive even though I’m an outsider. Perhaps I am lonelybecause I was an only child, never went to kindergarten, and all familialadults—my parents, aunts, and uncles—spoiled me very much. In theNazi years, I acquired an elephant skin and could deal with any kindof treatment.

I do think about the past, but not everyday. In 1989 when peopleremembered Reichskristallnacht, all the horrible images came back tomy mind. Usually I don’t think about it, except if somebody is talkingabout it in a disparaging manner. Then it is like “lightning in my brain”and I start to complain. If anybody talks about this time with indiffer-ence, it hurts me. My head heats up and the ache spreads throughout mybody. I often think about the eleven people whowere killed inmy family.Whatever happens in childhood, you never forget.

CHAPTER F IVE

URSULA RANDT

“One had, at the time, enough possibilities to die”

�

Ursula Randt lives in a quaint, cozy house on a quietresidential street in Klein Flotbek. All afternoon she hadescorted a group of former Hamburg citizens through Karo-linenstraße in conjunction with the Senatskanzlei program.This program, run by various city governments in Germany,invites formerly persecuted Germans, primarily Jewish, whohave never been back to their former “homes” to return at thecity’s expense. Their airfare, hotel, cultural events, and toursare paid for. My father could have been part of such a group.He chose not to, and when the Senatskanzlei kept pressinghim, he insisted with sincerity that he is not and was not everJewish. He did accept their invitation to visit apart from thisgroup, primarily because I was living inHamburg. Ursula told

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me that my father would have been fine in this group atmo-sphere as she was surprised how many people in the groupwere not Jewish (rather, were “mixed,” as she and my fatherhad been labeled) and had been baptized. Some clearly felt outof place. K. Dohnke, a journalist with whom I worked, toldme that when he was interviewing members of this group, henoticed that Ursula, one of the leaders, did not mention herJewish background to the former Hamburgers. Why not?

Ursula was clearly tired and was sleeping when I arrived.She had forgotten about our meeting. Her living room wasincredibly sunny. You could hear the birds singing in thebackground. She wore a brown and blue suit with white blouseunderneath, a simple string of pearls, and a square, silverwatch.I remember most her beautiful smile, which covered her entireface, her white, wavy hair, and dark eyes. She talked with herhands. Shehad an impressive, overpowering librarywith a largestereo in the corner. A melange of flowers was arranged on thewindowsills. An array of pictures thatUrsula talked about weredisplayed on her walls: Jewish women about whomUrsula hadwritten, includingMaryMarcus, the director of a Jewish girls’school, and a picture of her mother that hung alone.

Ursula had trouble talking about her past and said, as apreface, that only recently has she been able to discuss it. Shesaid her sister absolutelywill not speak of it. She also displayedmuch embarrassment at being singled out as something“other.” I noticed this occurred with the other women as well.In part, they do not want to talk about being “different” or beseen as “dirty” or “tainted” with some “unclean” blood. Ursula,I think, does not want to face this separation from herGermanness. She wants to believe in the fairy tale of theunblemished German folk, but does not. AlthoughUrsula wastrained as a speech therapist, she became a Jewish historianof sorts and wrote a book about a Hamburg Jewish girls’school.1 Her honorary doctorate, given for her work, isdisplayed.

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Ursula had been a special education instructor in thisschool for six years when in 1972 they were forced to move toa modern building, and an elderly woman told her the oldschool had once been for Jewish girls. Ursula then decided towrite the history, which is some sign of her need to berecognized as an intellect in Germany, but the topic she chosehelped her to embrace her own past in a secret, roundaboutway. According to her recollections, she had experienced onlyone negative incident, for which she felt very lucky. In reality,she experiencedmanynegative times: deportations, her sister’ssuffering, her own unfulfilled desires of continuing school,separation from her father, her parents’ divorce, and innumer-able bombing attacks. On the other hand, as a Mischling, shewas still, unbelievably, able to be German in many ways. Shewas protected by her mother’s “Aryan” family and was even amember of Hitler’s youth group for girls, BDM. I think manyof theMischlinge scamper to be alongside the “good Germans,”even though many of those Germans turned against them andwere ardent Nazis. They do not want to be associated withthose “bad Nazis” who just dropped from the heavens—eitherby agreeing with them politically or by being persecuted bythem. They want neither one in their history.

Although Ursula feels uncomfortable being viewed as“different” from her fellow Germans, it was clear she feels anaffinity to her Jewish heritage. She became sick in the fall of1941. She felt certain it was related to the deportations and toseeing family friends wearing a Jewish star. These events, shesaid, “had such a creepy, threatening, and atrocious dimensionthat I simply could not endure it.” Ursula recovered enoughto leave Hamburg and live in Giessen with her mother’s sister;however, at the end of the war the “split” in her identity onceagain was pronounced. Her aunt was unhappy the Germanshad lost the war, but Ursula was ecstatic that she wasunshackled from persecution. As a German, she had to worrynow that the Americans and British might harm her—a

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terrible irony—as during the war she had been consideredprimarily a Jew.

For such a private and cautious person, Ursula hasbecome very public. Why did she begin working with theHamburg Senate in its mission to bring back formerly perse-cuted citizens? Why does she conduct tours for returningpersecuted Jews when she herself had skirted her past? Sinceour meeting, Ursula seemingly has transformed. A mutualfriend wrote to me, May 7, 1998,

I was surprised myself when I met Ursula Randt.When we

talked about her meetings with visitors who participate in

the Hamburg program, she told me about several misun-

derstandings she experienced—how these “refugees” are

hypersensitive to certain terms. Ursula mentioned “Arisch”

[Aryan], and then—almost with a wink of her eye—

”Halbjude” [half Jew]. I’m very sure that she talked about

herself, and wanted to show me that this doesn’t have to be

a secret to me any longer. During one of her introductions

into the history of the Jewish Girls School at Karolinen-

straße, she briefly mentioned her own background, and I

have the strong feeling that she now tends to accept her own

history.

Today she appears to have conciliated her fracturedidentity—as long as she continues to speak and to leadcommunity tours for former persecuted Germans.

� � �

My name is Ursula Randt, born Klebe in Hamburg on May 25, 1929.My father was a doctor in Hamburg, Dr. Egon Klebe, born 1887 inEisenach, hence, in Thüringen, andmymother was Johanna Klebe, bornKrumm. She was born and grew up in Giessen, in Hessen. She was a

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bookseller. My father was Jewish. He came from a truly traditionalhousehold. I didn’t know about that then but I was told; for example,they had eaten kosher at home. He had attended, naturally, a non-Jewishschool. In Eisenach there was not a single Jewish school. He graduated,then studied medicine at various universities, and inWorldWar I he wasa volunteer front-line fighter for four years. He had one single half-brother who was younger than he. His mother died at a young age. Hisfather had married again. His half-brother studied law and in 1917, as avolunteer in Galizeen [Galicia], was killed in action.

My father received medals and badges of honor. He had the IronCross and the Distinguished Service Medal, and I don’t know what allelse. He was through and through a German. He came back toHamburgafter the war and did specialist training in Altona. He had pursued hiseducation in dermatology, to be a dermatologist. He met my mother,who came to Hamburg and worked as a bookseller in a large bookstore.They married in 1922, and my sister, Eva, was born in 1926. In 1929,I came into the world. When I was born, my parents were, what onecalls, well situated. My first memories go back to an apartment inWinterhude, a very large, well-proportioned, well-furnished, very beau-tifully located apartment and servants who came every day but did notlive with us as my father didn’t like that. We lived very well. My father’spractice meanwhile had begun to flourish—he had opened his own inthe 1920s. His father died in 1927 and his stepmother shortly thereafter.He was the sole heir. His parents were wealthy and so my parents cameinto a considerable fortune. I was very little when the Nazis came intopower. I was still not four years old, so I have no memory of it. I didn’tgrow up Jewish. My parents had agreed that we should be raisedneutrally, without religion, and when we grew up we should make ourown decision between Jewish and Christian. I had no idea what Jewishwas, and I had also not known at all for many years that I had a Jewishfather. However, I detected that we were in a special situation—that Ipicked up very quickly. Everything that had to do with the Nazis,uniforms and flags and marching troops, alarmed me enormously veryearly on. Thatmust have come frommy parents’ reactions, although theyhad tried not to let anything show. Besides, I knew that my parents were

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“against it”—at that time one was either for or against it—and I knewthat one mustn’t say “against.”

I sometimes heard conversations at the table that definitely were notfor me to hear. They said, “Mind the child,” and my parents grew silent.Sometimes I overheard conversations when my parents had visitors. Iknow now that the visitors were mainly Jewish colleagues of my father’sand that the conversation always revolved around the theme “Emigrateor stay.” If I walked in, they said, “Mind the child,” and it was quietagain. I knew something or other wasn’t right. But sometimes I caughtwords and then I would be reprimanded: “You must not say or repeatthat anywhere.”2 You probably know that it was inordinately dangerousto be against the government, against Hitler. Even if our situation wasself-evident, I mustn’t say anything under any circumstance. I believethere are still forebodings that haunt me today; the fear that somehowsaying something wrong or saying too much could have terrible conse-quences. I also feared that I could bring my parents to a catastrophe, thatI would somehow betray them. I believe a child who grew up in a freeworld, in a free country, couldn’t conceive this. That is something Inotice again and again, even with my own children. What is absolutelyinconceivable: these commands to silence, to experience or say onlywhat’s permitted, and everything beyond that can be deadly. I don’tknow whether I knew that it was deadly, but it was by all means terriblydangerous. I have said to begin with I didn’t know that my father wasJewish—my parents didn’t say—they wanted to go easy on me. Theywanted me to stay unbiased, as unbiased as possible, and then they hadallowed my sister and me to be baptized with my father’s consent in1938, an event I remember well. I was eight. This baptism took place athome.We were no longer in that big apartment. My parents had alreadylost a large part of their inheritance. My father, of course, had hardly anincome because his salary had been taken and many patients didn’t darego to a Jewish doctor any more. And so in 1935 we had to move to acheaper apartment. I don’t want to tell now how it came about that myparents lost their entire fortune that year. In reality, they so utterly losttheir fortune that nothing remained as a result of the persecution exceptfor debts. I don’t knowwhether I should tell you this. Naturally I learned

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everything later. I noticed only the effects, of course. I went to a girls’school, a typical public school, in 1935. I was unbelievably lucky to havea fantastic teacher. Because your origin had to be declared at registration,it was nearly impossible to cheat and [for students and teachers] to actas if it were nothing. I had a wonderful teacher, and I actually had fourvery nice school years.

In fall, October 1, 1938, all the Jewish doctors had their licensesrevoked.3 My father lost his license and had to give up his practice. Itwas no longer possible to keep my father’s Jewishness a secret from me.My mother had to tell me. It was a shock. You can’t imagine today whatkind of a shock that was because I knew that Jews were being persecuted.One saw caricatures everywhere in town, in the Stürmer cartoons [nearlypornographic], on the front page of newspapers. One heard inflamma-tory speeches. As a child, you learned that the most horrible enemy ofthe Germans were the Jews and they must disappear. Suddenly we wereapprised that we belonged to this group. This was a blow I probably havenever completely overcome. And along with that came the expectationto emigrate. My mother said, “We will emigrate. We’re just waiting foran affidavit, a guarantee from America. As soon as possible we have toget out of Germany.” As you will see, it didn’t turn out that way.

I can still remembermuch about this time, for example, the so-calledKristallnacht [“night of broken glass”] on November 9 and 10, 1938. Atthe time I was with my mother; we went into the city and I beheldinnumerable pieces of broken glass. Do you know theKleine Alster [lake]and the Alsterarkaden? Window display mannequins floated there froma plundered business called Robinson and from other ravaged stores.There were several large, Jewish-owned department stores that had beendestroyed and the mannequins swam, floated in the water like dismem-bered people. That greatly affected me. I also feared for my father, whohad remained home. He wasn’t imprisoned then, probably because hewas in a “mixed marriage,” protected by my “Aryan” mother.

I also remember a house search. I came home from school and foundtwomen busy searching in the cabinets. We had a large hallway in whichthere were many closets. The two men busily cleaned out the closets. Iwas nine years old and didn’t realize this was a house search. I believed

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my parents had employed these men to clean the house. I sat down andstarted to chat with them, to the horror of my parents, who were sittingin the living room and naturally were terribly afraid that thesemenwouldsomehow or other get information out of me. Perhaps I would unwit-tingly tell them something, which was inordinately dangerous. Theentire event was harmless conversation. They asked me questions aboutschoolwork and school, and they were also friendly to my parents. Theyexcused themselves, took leave, and so it seemed like it was no big deal[as if they were just polite cleaners].

In 1939 my father had to give up his valuables, and at the time Ialready understood what it meant. Most of the things he could give tomy mother. By doing that, they would be in “Aryan” possession. Forexample, he had a gold watch his father gave him in 1914 when he’dvolunteered. He had to give it up. That was incredibly painful for himbecause it was his father’s souvenir. One day I came home from schooland my father carried an airmail letter with colorful edges in his handand waved it saying again and again “I have an affidavit. I have anaffidavit.” I didn’t really believe my father would go away. At the timehe was joyous. Later, he couldn’t use this affidavit. His passport wascancelled. It was a very nerve-wracking time. Howmy parents succeededin having us notice relatively little is still a mystery. In our presence theykept to themselves and tried to keep as much as possible from us.

In spring 1939 I completed fourth grade, the last grade of primaryschool, and then passed the exam for the next level, but my parentswanted me to get away from Hamburg because my father was about toemigrate and they didn’t want me to take part in all the frenzy. Mymother managed to have me suspended from school for an entire year.Not going to school at all for a year was not necessarily a positive movefor me. I was, of course, bored. They sent me to my mother’s relativesin Gießen. My mother’s father and two sisters were there and one sisterhad a family, a husband and three children. I spent months in Gießenand heard about my father’s emigration through a letter frommymotherat the end of June 1939. I had seen him for the last time before I rodetoGießen. I spent the beginning of the war inGießen, which I remembervery well. I lived at my grandfather’s and his unmarried daughter’s.

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Together, they managed a large wholesale operation for groceries andother things, which were then sold in the village stores in Hessen. Oneevening my grandfather brought a woman with a small child into thehouse. They had been evacuated from the Left Bank of the Rhine. In1939 some women and children had been evacuated as a precaution andbrought into the interior of the country. My grandfather had just takenthem in. I had to give up my bedroom to the mother and daughter andmove to my grandfather’s bedroom to sleep for one or two nights. WhenI awoke in the morning, my grandfather had already gotten up and goneto his office. The housekeeper, a middle-aged woman, came in, openedthe curtains and said, “There’s war. They’ve been shooting since six A.M.”I will never forget that. Soon the first alarms began in Gießen. We wentdown to the basement. We had ration tickets and you couldn’t buyeverything you wanted. And there was a general tension. I also sawsomething that I absolutely won’t forget: the somber atmosphere of thevery first days of the war. In no way did the people celebrate, quite thecontrary. We lived not far from the train station. The street led to thetrain station where I’d stand in the evenings and watch endless columnsof soldiers with horses heading for the station andmoving forward.Manypeople stood on the edge of the street, and, as I said, the atmosphere wasdepressing—quite a contrast to the First World War. My mother hadtold me how people had celebrated and gone crazy. That was not at allthe case now.

In October 1939 I returned to Hamburg. I was quite bored, I mustsay, because I wasn’t going to school. On Easter 1940 it started. Mymother registered me in a Hamburg girls’ school. There I had my firstand only really horrifying experience with a fanatical anti-Semite. It waspleasant in the school. I soon had friends. I felt good there. Perhaps oneweek after the first school day we had an assembly in the large hall andthe school director spoke to us. He was, at the same time, our Englishteacher. I noticed after a short time I wasn’t listening well. Who’sinterested? A ten-year-old is not interested in such speeches. Then I didlisten. I soon noticed he was a fanatical Nazi, a traveling speaker of theNazi party, and he told us about his struggle for the National Socialistsbefore 1933. I had never before met a Nazi, or hadn’t known I’d met a

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Nazi. They were always somewhere in the distance; they were marchingaround in other places but you didn’t have direct dealings with them.That was the first time someone stood eye to eye, opposed to me, acrossfrom me, on whom I was dependent. He began to speak about theenemies who threatened Germany in 1940 from all sides and aboutGermany’s struggle for its existence. The worst enemies, he said, were,however, not outside Germany’s borders. No, the worst enemies wereinside the country—the most dangerous, the most devious enemies—and those were the Jews. And that was a few months after my father hademigrated. He went further and said not only are there enemies in thecountry, but also here inside the school. He said, “Ah, you will askyourselves who? Jews are not allowed to attend German schools. ThankGod there’s a law that forbids it.” I tell you, I was ten and you perhapsbelieve that I no longer remember things exactly, but I know it in distinctdetail because it burned itself into me, pressed itself into me unforgetta-bly—I am not making something up. He said, “Jews certainly no longergo to our school, that’s forbidden, thank God. But there are still halfJews, and unfortunately these half Jews are still at our school because itis not possible yet to remove them.” And then he reported a few incidentsin the school, all possible disagreeable occurrences. I know about onlyone. He said a valuable piano in the auditorium was scratched up.Investigations had revealed that “Aryan” children had scratched it up.But, he said, we researched further and found the instigators had been“half Jews.” This speech endedwith an urgent warning about “half Jews”:Beware of them. My fellow pupils knew nothing about me, but I wenthome half numb. There I began to cry and told my mother everything.She was absolutely beside herself. Mymother, a very courageous woman,said, “You no longer go there. Don’t go into that school, not a single stepwill you make into that school.”4 One must imagine the situation: Theschool year had begun and now to take a child out of school and registersomewhere else? With what reasoning? To say “I can’t let my child intothe school. There’s a terrible Nazi and anti-Semite” wouldn’t haveworked in 1940. But for my mother it was definite. She wouldn’t sendme there. I had awonderful former grade-school teacher whom she calledand asked for help. He came over immediately and reflected. He knew

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no school director whom he trusted except one to whom he could speakopenly. He simply called up this person and told him the story. That wasa courageous deed at the time. I don’t know if anyone who didn’t livethen can conceive this. He explained the situation and this other schoolprincipal said right away I could come to his school. Nothing wouldhappen to me there. He gave his word and would stand by it. He evencalled the Nazi colleague and told him I had switched schools and why.I tell you this now to show you there were courageous people. I find thiscompletely tremendous, inordinately courageous. As an American, youprobably can’t make sense of it, what it meant. This school was theHeilwigschule. It still exists today. It was also a girls’ school. My teacherand school principal was Dr. Luethje. The Nazi teacher had a similarname, Dr. Lueth. So, I came into the Heilwigschule and felt good fromthe first moment on. I was accepted lovingly and in a friendly manner,and had the good fortune that it remained that way for four years. I didn’thave a single unpleasant experience with a teacher. They treated me thesame as they treated others. I don’t know whether my fellow pupils knewabout my Jewish father. With regard to some of them I knew they knew,of course. For instance, my best friend. I only told others, “My parentslive separately.” I was taught to say that.Not to say, whenever I was asked,“My father doesn’t live in Germany; my parents live apart.” I revealednothing, but of course everyone had to know what I was because I didn’tgo to the Jungmädel [pre-BDM], a young woman’s Nazi group. At ageten, one went to the Jungmädel, and later, at fourteen, the BDM, and Iwasn’t allowed to participate in that either. That was also naturallyconspicuous. Of course everyone knew, but I didn’t have any unpleasanttimes. Quite the contrary. I always had friends, was invited to birthdayparties, was in the midst of activities. In this respect, everything was fine.

My father could write only as long as America wasn’t in the war. Wewere supposed to follow him as soon as he had established himself, butthat didn’t work out because my father had to pass exams once again.He was already over fifty and it was rough for him. He spoke no Englishat all and my mother had large debts that my father left behind. First ofall, my parents had lost their entire fortune, then my parents had to goto court. My mother still had debts to the attorney and so we were

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completely impoverished. There was absolutely no possibility to travelto America. Ah, my mother! How did we live at the time? We had fourrooms. My mother rented two rooms to two young ladies and workedat home. She typed letters for an office in order to earn money. She wasno longer a bookseller. First, there was a war, and second, she didn’t wantto leave us alone. She always had the feeling she must be at home so mysister and I wouldn’t be left to our own devices.

I knew of no other children from “mixed marriages” in my class. Inother classes, there were some. In mine, no. In a class a year ahead of me,I knew for sure there was the daughter of the Reichsstatthalter [similar tostate representative], [Karl] Kaufmann. No, she was in the class behindme. This was a school in Harvestehude where some prominent Nazislived. I have no memories at all of any sort of difficulties for me. Maybeit would have been difficult if I had flunked a grade and ended up in thesame class with the Kaufmann daughter. I actually have only goodmemories. No unpleasant memories. I enjoyed going. I felt secure. I wasalmost a favorite student, one could say. A teacher with whom I met andspoke after the war told me that someone had informed the Kollegium[school board] of what had happened to me in my other school. Inresponse, this school board had resolved unanimously to stand by me. Ithink that’s important to know.

Perhaps another reason formy lack of badmemories wasmymother.My mother was very popular. She was an extraordinary human beingand could get along beautifully with others and impressed people verymuch through her style. She was very clever, full of humor, quick-witted,smart, and beloved by others. That of course helped me as well. Mymother provided me with strong support. I know my mother did muchfor others too. She was admired by many.

My mother was of medium height. How should I describe her?Medium height, not extremely thin but not fat. She had a good figure,very graceful, and earlier had been very athletic. She had unbelievablylively eyes and a very lively, beautiful, clever, and kindly face.Mymotherwas very popular with my friends in school, and she had a sense for sillythings. Loved to laugh. She played with us, read, told stories, and wasalways full of ideas. In spite of the whole depressing situation, she was

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always there for us. There were children who when something wentwrong were afraid of their parents. I would never have thought of beingafraid of my parents. Quite the contrary. At home, you could informthem, tell them. My mother listened attentively to stories, even like theterrible one with the anti-Semite. I could depend on my mother and herprotection. I always had the feeling she could cope with anything, evenwith Hitler himself. As a child, that’s the way I always felt and thought.

My mother came from a Social Democratic household. My grand-father in Gießen was a Social Democrat from its beginnings. He was onein the previous century when there were the socialist laws, and the partywas banned. In Gießen he was one of the founders of the SocialDemocratic party [SPD]—a council member up until the First WorldWar. He played a large political role in Hessen. In 1910 he was also acandidate for the parliament. I say that now, but I know that only becauseof what my mother told me. I have tried with the help of the FriedrichEbert Foundation inBonn to learnmore about the development of SocialDemocracy in Gießen and they wrote to me, “Everything is destroyed.In part in the war and in part after theNazi seizure of power.” Everythingthat in some way could have been dangerous for former members of theSocial Democratic party was destroyed in 1933. Whatever I know aboutmy grandfather is through my mother’s stories. As a young girl, she waspassionately interested in politics. She was a pacifist. She was also greatlyinterested and involved in the women’s movement. She was an ardentsocialist. That’s the way she was and that’s the way she stayed. I believeher cosmopolitanism, that she married my father and was alwaysswimming against the current, didn’t upset her at all. My mother wasreally suave, liberal, and involved herself very much with society.

She put energy into Social Democratic and women’s associationsduring and after World War I, but I don’t know for sure if she was amember. I know only for instance that she read Lilli Braun: Erinnerungeneiner Sozialistin [Lilli Braun: Memories of a Socialist Woman]. I havethat here on the shelf. I bought it again. She spoke with enthusiasm aboutit. I just found a book in an antique store and read it with great interest,a book that today nobody knows about but about which my mothertalked. Itmust havemade an impression on her as a young girl:DieKatrin

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wird Soldat. [Katrin Becomes a Soldier].5 It is a pacifist, no, not pacifistreally, but an outspoken antiwar book. It deals with a young girl, shouldI tell you? It strongly influenced my mother, and us indirectly, as well. Ijust read it for the first time. It’s about a young girl born in 1897 justlike my mother, in Lorraine, Left Bank of the Rhine in Metz. She was aJew but that plays no role in the book; it’s only mentioned now andagain. [At this time, the doorbell rings.]Who’s there? [She whispers.] It’sprobably my second cousin who’s mentally slow. When I don’t answerthe door, he goes away. [She does not answer.]

I have to admit, I don’t know if my mother ever campaigned for awoman’s right to vote. She was a supporter of the women’s movement.In 1918, I believe, the right to vote was introduced in Germany. She wastwenty-one and committed herself to that as a young girl. I know, forexample, she was a very good but uncomfortable student in school. Shewas an unwilling student because she always thought very independentlyand came from a very Social Democratic family. In bourgeois society thatwas a provocation. She had, for example, a 3 in conduct at graduation,not very good. Conduct is how one behaves toward adults, and behaviorwas measured that way. How one got along with fellow students or howwilling one was to help or cooperate wasn’t measured.

My mother didn’t take part in certain home economics classes6

because my grandfather used her near sightedness as an excuse. Homeeconomics was taught in such a mentally stunting manner. Instead, mymother could go for a walk and read what was made available to herduring that class time. But the needle-work teachers took offense. Onetime someone in the street recognized her and she didn’t greet herbecause she was nearsighted, so she was viewed as arrogant and mean-intentioned. And she received a 3 in conduct. That wasn’t easy to haveon a diploma, because it’s detrimental. It showed on applications at thattime. But that simply was my mother who always swam against the tide.My mother died in 1969 at seventy-two, scarcely seventy-two, unfortu-nately. But I have inherited very little of my mother’s fighting spirit. Iwas always anxious, timid, and accommodating. I shared her thoughtsand feelings very strongly and always wished I could be like her but Imust say, I’m not. She acted very bravely.

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Mymother was actually dominant in her marriage. My father wasrather dependent and always a bit Gedankenabwesend [absent-minded]. He was immersed in thoughts somewhere or other ruminat-ing over subjects. “Spacey” might be the accurate English term. Hewas always in thought, not entirely in this world. My father was notsomeone who stood with both feet firmly on the ground; rather, hewas often captivated by some idea. Often he needed someone to relievehim of practical duties. My mother did that. Before my fatheremigrated my mother made all the trips to the consulate and to theGerman offices and so on. She relieved him of everything because myfather was so helpless in everyday life and he was also in danger then.Mymother was the only one who performed wonderfully, so we alwaysexpected that she would do everything. And when we were long sincegrown up, my sister and I, we still expected my mother to manageeach situation. My mother said once, shortly before her death, “Iwould gladly have been the weaker.” I still think about that. “Yes, Iwould gladly one time in my life have been the weaker.” She told methe following: After my sister’s birth she was seriously sick. She had asepsis, a kind of childbed [postnatal] fever. She was suspended betweenlife and death. My father came to visit her, everyday, hours long, andsat on her bed and cried. My mother, who was deathly ill, consoledhim. I believe that was significant somehow or other. He always saidhe had lost his own mother so early. It sounds so funny now when Itell it. He said, “I can get another woman but I can’t get a suitablemother for my child.” And my mother had to comfort him and say itwould be okay and she would be healthy again. So that is therelationship between my parents. My father was the weaker one andin need of consolation and my mother would have gladly, just once,been the weaker. We always saddled her with everything because shewas really the one who managed.

Yes, I think my mother felt weak at times, certainly, but she neverrevealed it. She was a person of unbelievable self-control. But, ultimately,that was something she overtaxed. Then she was also indescribablyweighed down from the entire Nazi situation, and added to that weoverburdened her. And I think sometimes, my poor mother, it was all

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so inhumanely unreasonable. We lived under the conditions of war andthe Nazis.

My father couldn’t send money in wartime. After the war he helpedus greatly. During the war that wasn’t possible. My mother was leftentirely to her own resources. The time came whenmy sister had to leaveschool and go into her Pflichtjahr [mandatory year of service].7 The girls,having left school, had to work a year in a large household that had manychildren. As far as that goes, she lucked out and lived with nice peoplein the country. During my sister’s duty year I was alone with my motherin Hamburg. In 1941 my father’s relatives were deported. I caught onto that. I still have the deportations horribly housed in memory. I knewnothing exactly, saw nothing precisely, but I know my mother, even atthat time, had tried desperately to prevent the deportation of my father’srelatives. And ineffectually. They were deported to Riga [Latvia]8 andkilled. The entire situation, beginning with the introduction of theJewish stars,mademe sick.9 It was a dreadful shock formewhen suddenlypeople in the street ran around with these stars attached to them, and Iwas mortally terrified that I also must wear one. Friends and relatives andacquaintances here were suddenly wearing these stars. And then theydisappeared. I knew they had been deported. I was very sick in fall 1941.I am absolutely certain it had to do with these events. They had such acreepy, threatening, and atrocious dimension that I simply did not easilyendure. I didn’t go to school for months. I don’t know how long. Untilspring 1942 I lay in the hospital a long time. Nobody knew what waswrong. Depressed, mental problems, yes. I suppose it was more. I wasabsolutely no longer in the position to do anything, and I could eatnothing. I untiringly vomited everything. I had terrible stomach pains.My appendix was held responsible for it. I was operated on. It turnedout that it wasn’t the appendix at all. I contracted pneumonia after thisappendix operation, and truly, I just survived. I recovered very veryslowly. I think this condition into which I’d gotten was, withoutquestion, related to this persecution. And with the shock over myrelatives and what happened to them and what occurred around me.

My mother talked about it sometimes. I know that. Meanwhile wereally knew everything. Once when my mother was out, she saw signs of

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the deportations. And she came home—and I can only faintly remember,I never asked her questions about that, strangely enough—she wasperfectly colorless in the face, she vomited and talked about what was soterrible. She had seen how the Jewish people had been rounded up. Andshe was regularly in a state of shock. Unfortunately, it happens every-where. No nation is safeguarded against it.

My sister and I got along fairly well with each other, even thoughshe always did better in school. School basically played a minor role forus. Mymother certainly was interested in our report cards and our work,but even with that she had a totally different attitude than other mothers.My mother was completely novel in many respects. For example, if wehad bad grades, which almost never occurred with my sister but severaltimes with me, my mother said, “We must now compensate for thatsomehow. We must celebrate.” Then we went to an ice cream parlor orconfectionary and my mother said, “If anything at all unpleasanthappens, then you must equalize it with something good.” We stoppedanywhere we felt like it, ate an ice cream or took a walk—anythingbeautiful I was allowed to seek out formyself. This happened a few times.That’s how my mother functioned, no? My father, as long as he was stillthere, wasn’t interested in our school reports. He had entirely differentworries. I could hold whatever I wanted under his nose. If it was nothingbut poor grades, he said, “great, great,” because he didn’t look in to seeat all. To him it was regarded as trivial. Hewas busy withmore importantthings, and it wasn’t so serious to him.

In 1942 my sister had to leave school. She was a brilliant student incontrast to me. I was not so awfully good in school. My sister gladlyattended, was an unbelievably good pupil, and had to leave in 1942. Theyknew perhaps about this Rusterlass,10which was directed at theMischlingersten Grades. Entering into the secondary school was forbidden for us,and if you were already there, you had to finish as if you had genuinelycompleted, had achieved a certain level.My sister finished the tenth gradeand immediately had to leave the school. I had been advanced to theseventh grade andwas allowed to remain according to thisRusterlass untilthe end of the eighth school year. I could stay two years and then I mustget out. That was a new shock for my mother. You must imagine our

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financial situation. We had really nothing at all. We had unimaginablylittle money. What we had, my mother earned from renting rooms andtypewriting work. It didn’t suffice.

My sister was horrified to be thrown off track through theNazi years.My sister would have studied in the university, and I believe she wouldhave been a splendid lawyer. Perhaps a doctor, I don’t know for sure, butI think really she would have been a good lawyer. She had to get out anddidn’t finish the diploma. She had to earn money at first after the war.It would have been good for her self-worth if she had gotten a diplomathen, but she didn’t see the necessity right away. On the contrary, firstshe earned a little money, which was fundamentally important at thetime for us. We had nothing. In the last year before the end of the war,April 1944-1945, she was an untrained office aide. She wasn’t allowedat all to study. Occupational training was forbidden [because of herJewish parent]. Her job was recognized later as a business apprenticeship.After [the war], she worked her way to a decent position. Shewas businessdirector in the Hamburg Journalist’s Association, a very respectedposition. Then she worked her way into insurance law and to this dayshe’s consulted as an expert in this field even though she didn’t go toschool. Today she’s often asked, for example, in the former EastGermany, to give speeches about insurance law for journalists. She’s stillneeded very much. But what she gladly would have done, and what shewould have done extremely well, she didn’t do, and for many years shehad to work her way through the world.

In 1943, you probably know there were heavy bomb attacks onHamburg, Operation Gomorrah by the Royal Air Force. Summer 1943[July 24, 1943], we were bombed out. It was catastrophic for mymother.For everybody. But especially hard for us, because the apartment was oursource of income. The house burned out; the apartment was gone andwe had saved nothing at all. My mother lived in Gießen for a while andthere the political climate was horrible, not by our relatives, but in sucha small city one couldn’t put upwith it. Shewanted to return toHamburgalthoughHamburg had been almost completely destroyed and one couldgo back to Hamburg only if one proved he had a job there. Booksellerswere no longer sought after. There also were no more books, none to

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buy. My mother applied for a job as a house employee. She really lovedHamburg. Shewanted to go back, above all, for political reasons. In smallcities and the countryside the people observed each other more closelyand the Nazis in Gießen were highly fanatical—completely horribleNazis. Not my relatives. I have to make an exception for them. Mymother succeeded in getting a job as a housekeeper and returned toHamburg in Fall 1943. She got one small room.Whenmy sister returnedfrom her Pflichtjahr in the summer of 1944 she lived with my mother inthis room and, after the war, I joined them.We sometimes had to move,but we always lived in one small room altogether until 1953 when Imarried. You can’t imagine how primitively we lived at that time.

After the bombing in 1943 there were no lessons held in Hamburg.The schools remained closed. I had no more schooling. In January 1944my school was transferred to a small town, Wittstock, in Mecklenburg,situated between the Baltic and Berlin. It was mainly rural country. Itwas called Kinderlandverschickung [sending the children to the country-side].11 I don’t know if you’ve encountered that term. The children fromareas likely to be bombed were—at the time it was voluntary—sent intothe countryside in order to be educated. In the cities, under thecircumstances, it was no longer possible. Probably there were otherreasons for sending children to the countryside—that is, it could havebeen so the Hitler Youth, the NSDAP [the Nazi party], the Nazis, andthe BDM [League of German Girls] and so on could have a moreintensified effect on the children. That was also the intention. At thetime, although Iwas a person of “mixed race of the first degree,” I traveledin January 1944; I took part in the “sending the kids to the country.”Most children lived in large camps but the girls at our school were housedin private quarters, and so was I. My foster-mother was a seventy-year-old widow. I was fortunate because she was not a Nazi at all but had beena Communist. In this way we trusted and understood each other. Thatwas the most important thing of all there. I did not experience bullying.In this regard, I was always very lucky. It was difficult in a small city tonot be in the BDM. Almost the entire school was nothing but girls andwe had our own camp leader, a BDM leader, just for our school. Shevisited me in my private room shortly after I arrived, and she said, “In

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such a small city it is highly conspicuous if you aren’t in service, and Iwant to ask whether you want to come into service?” I said, “Yes, I amnot allowed, you can guess for which reasons. I also have no uniform.”One said “Kluft.” I said, “I don’t have a ‘Kluft.’” She said, “Ah, thatdoesn’t matter. Certainly you have a blue skirt and a white blouse and ajacket and bobby socks? Simply put these on and make do and you don’tneed to worry, it won’t be noticeable. Some of the others were bombedout, so they also don’t have everything according to regulations.”

In order not to be conspicuous in a small town, I joined the BDM onexcursions. I still have a letter in which I describe a Nazi assembly withgrown up leaders of the Hitler Youth and more Nazis who had to instructus politically, and I made fun of it. I was very improvident in my letters. Ihave these letters, and now Imust say again that nothing terrible happenedto me. It was my school and they were all dear to me. I belonged thereabsolutely and I was in the choir. I sang madly. We performed theaterpieces, not Nazi pieces, but normal fairy tales and operettas. Perhaps youthink it seems strange. I was elated then in the children’s evacuation andit was worse to think about being away from home. When I think of thattime, I think it was always really sad because I was afraid of the war. I wasafraid because of my father. I was afraid because I didn’t know what hadhappened to my mother and sister in Hamburg—we always heard bombswere dropped on Hamburg again and again and again so I didn’t knowwhat had happened to them. And I didn’t know what would happen tome. It was a gloomy time.

But, in spite of all this, life with my teacher and all of these girls,who were very kind, was somewhat good. The old woman I lived withwas my substitute mother. She was not so old, but I thought she was veryold. She was seventy then and I was fourteen. For me she was very veryold. But she was not a Nazi and there were no Nazis in the house. It wasa good feeling for me to have no Nazis there. Everybody was kind. Inspite of all this, it was awfully gloomy. You had the feeling that youcouldn’t survive. I didn’t think that I would survive. I thought, Theseare the last months of my life. I thought this way until after the war.

I remained in Wittstock until the summer of 1944. Then I had toleave. I still have the complete correspondence. My mother had tried to

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reach the school agencies so that I’d be able to stay. It was rejected. Shemade many requests and always was turned down. I was to leave summer1944, after completing the eighth grade. I wasn’t allowed to stay inMecklenburg. I wasn’t allowed to perform the Pflichtjahr nor learn anoccupation, nor attend a different school. I was sought out for compul-sory labor. The work agency wanted to direct me to forced labor. I stillhave many documents pertaining to that. Once again I had tremendousgood fortune. I was still very small and looked twelve and had the strengthof a twelve-year-old. In Hamburg, I was exempted from this labor andwas allowed to go to relatives in Gießen. My mother couldn’t providelodging for me and wanted to get me out of the bombing areas. I havean appalling fear of bomb attacks that started after I was in them a fewtimes and had barely escaped. You can’t imagine how horrifying it is—you can’t imagine it—to fall victim to a bombing attack is unimaginablyghastly. I had immense fear. My mother thought I’d be safe from Nazisand bombs in Gießen. I lived at my mother’s oldest sister’s house. Youknow where Gießen is, in Hessen? This older sister was married withthree grown children. Her oldest son, a soldier, had already died in battlein Russia, 1942. The younger son was in France and missing. Thedaughter was in Gießen but had been called up for work as an aide tothe Air Force. While living there, I tried to behave as inconspicuously aspossible so nobody would notice anything about me. I couldn’t domuch—only help with a few odds and ends in the house. I hoped thewar would end. I liked my aunt. She was close to me. And my cousin.My aunt’s husband was difficult—he could hardly put up with me. Bothof his sons were soldiers and one died in battle. He knew what I wasthinking and hoping even though I didn’t speak. He knew on which sideI stood. And I did nothing, sat around. In a certain way, I was a spoiledchild. I had never helped out in the house and there were difficultiesbetween my relatives. I didn’t grasp it then, but later it was clear.

We also heard stories about the camps. Nothing exact. I knew thatmy relatives were taken away. I knew that the Jews were gone fromHamburg. Deportations. I didn’t see deportations myself, but I knew theyhad happened. I knew from my mother also, and it occurred sometimesthat news trickled through, for example, from soldiers who were on leave.

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Above all, from the Russian front; they had almost all experienced a greatdeal of mass executions and so forth. My mother had a cousin, older thanshe, who was called up to be a staff doctor. He was a general staff doctorin a high position. He was sent to Russia to a military hospital in Minsk.I know that while he was in Minsk he had happened upon the Jewishexterminations in close proximity and had toldmymother about it duringleave. My mother was completely beside herself. My uncle wasn’t a Nazibut had grasped what was wrong there. I know myself that he said oncethat an SS man was taken in by them, off and on; he had gone crazy fromthe executions. He had a mental breakdown. Hence, we knew a heap. Ithink the majority knew, more or less, but had, in part, not believed it. Noone could be cognizant of specific expressions like “Auschwitz.” They didknow “concentration camp.” They knew about that for a while. One knewthere weremass killings. One knew the Jews had disappeared, that is, thosewho hadn’t emigrated. The Sternträger [Jews wearing stars] had disap-peared and one surmised what had happened to them. This and that wassaid or whispered. One must know that the theme was suppressed, wasnaturally awful.Onewasn’t permitted to listen to the English broadcastingsystem. It was a capital offense. I know in Gießen, before we were bombedout, there was a death warrant against a married couple we knew who hadlistened to the English broadcast and had spoken about it. They weresentenced to death. I know this for sure because I knew them. The BBCbroadcast German news. We listened to it always.

In December 1944 it was Gießen’s turn for heavy bombing attacks.We were all bombed out. Likewise, my grandfather with his singledaughter.They lived tenminutes fromus.Their private house andbusinesswere destroyed. My grandfather, my mother’s father, died shortly after hegot out of the bombs as a result of this attack and smoke inhalation.

I was separated from my relatives. I don’t know why. I came intoa small village in the Marburg area quite some distance from myrelatives where two young women lived—one unmarried and the otherwidowed. Her husband had died in battle. There were hardly any menaround—young men were a rarity. In this entire village there were onlywomen, children, and oldmen. These women tookme into their home.I don’t know if they knew what was going on with me, or what my

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situation was. In any event, I lived there. I was the niece of Mrs. Fuhr,she was my mother’s sister, and they knew that. So I remained at theirplace. I had, of course, fewer possibilities to do anything. We had twopuny little rooms that we lived in. One of these two women had a four-year-old son, and we four slept in two beds. One can’t imagine theprimitiveness. I no longer had anything except for a small little suitcasewith a few cheap articles of clothing. I received no more clothing—there wasn’t any. I got ration coupons but no clothes. I still had a pairof shoes and in them I had run out of the burning city of Gießen. Theywere worn out, taped together. I had nothing more than that. Theseshoes were too tight and the winter was cold so my feet were terriblyfrozen. Then I just sat and hoped that the war would end. I couldn’tdo anything else. I was busy with the small boy.

In March 1945 the Americans were already close, and the youngersister of my mother, who directed my grandfather’s business, came topick me up. She arrived with the company truck one early morning.There was nomore gasoline. The truck ran on charcoal. There were largecharcoal containers to the left and right of the cooling system, whichwere then turned into gas. My aunt wanted to take me to her place. Wetraveled the entire day because, at the time, American low-flying aircraftwere out and shot at everything that moved. I have to say it seems like amiracle to me that I’m sitting here. I think of people who were trying todo me in—not just the Nazis but also the British and Americans. Myaunt didn’t sit in the driver’s cab but stood outside the door clinging tothe door handle to see if low-flying American planes would appear. I satbeside the driver. If there were some planes, she’d hit on the windshieldand we’d stop, jump out, and roll into the ditch next to the road. Mostof the time they roared by us. A few times they did shoot at us, but wealways got out. Today a survivor told me that his relatives had stayed inGermany and endured the war, Nazi Germany, and a time in hiding—they withstood the war until a few days before the war’s end when theywere killed in a bombing attack. One had, at the time, enoughpossibilities to die.

After the war started, contact from America was also broken. Untilthen my father had continued to write and we had been able to write

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back. It took an eternity for the mail to arrive. Later on you could stillwrite a few words by means of the Red Cross, but that was practicallynothing compared to earlier. I knew nothing at all about my father, andas I sat around in Hessen I knew nothing about my mother. But nowand then we still got letters through to Hamburg and from Hamburg. Icould show some to you, but I believe then we would sit here untilmidnight. For example, we got postcards. I couldn’t write any moreletters because there wasn’t any paper. One can’t imagine the scarcity.The postcards all had an imprint that said—if you want, I can show themto you— “Der Führer kennt nur Kampf, Arbeit und Sorge. Wir wollen ihmden Teil davon abnehmen, den wir ihm abnehmen können.” [The Führerknows only war, work and worry. We want to ease his burdens by takingup a part of his work]. I still have one.

After the war, I knew I had survived. I think with the air raids inthe summer of 1943. They were so awful, I can’t describe. After thefirst air raid in Hamburg, the night between July 24 and 25—it hadbeen a heavy air raid but we weren’t bombed out—our house was allright but we saw the sky and it was red from fire. In the morning whenwe awakened it was dark because of the smoke. And it was dark all day.It was a wonderful day—clear and sunny—but in Hamburg all the daywas dawn, yes? Not quite dark, but dawn. You couldn’t see anythingbecause there was smoke everywhere in the sky. You had a feeling ofWeltuntergang [the world is going to end]. I didn’t think that Hamburgwould survive. Yes, later it was rebuilt. I thought it is the end ofHamburg, and it will be the end of us. That day, after the first air raid,friends of ours who were bombed out came to us and I can see theirfaces—horrified, gray faces—with the expression of, oh, I can’t say it,äußerster Entsetzen und Schrecken [extreme terror and fright]. And fromthat moment on the Nazis were on one side and these air raids on theother. You couldn’t think. I only thought, these will be the last monthsof my life. From all sides, men in uniform tried to kill me. [She raisesher voice.] Today when I see policemen in uniforms it doesn’t reallybother me. Soldiers, yes. I can’t stand to watch them march.

I can talk about how the Americans came—should I talk about it?My aunt took me into the village. Should I speak in English? I can try.

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[She switches to English.] She took me to Grossen Linden, where shelived. The driver of that car had saved her and my grandfather duringthe night when Gießen was destroyed and he had come and helpedthem escape. But my grandfather, as I told you, died some days later.He was injured. My aunt, the younger sister of my mother, stayed withthis driver’s family in that village in Hessen. She took me with her. Shehad a very, very small room in that house, an old house. It was toosmall for one person, and yet two of us slept together. We knew theAmericans were very near to us. We could hear shooting and so on.People began to show white towels. We had one towel together—myaunt and I. [Laughs.] And we put our towel out of the window. It wasforbidden. There were SS soldiers who came to the village and theysaid we were not allowed to show white. [In German.] Oh, they wantedto fight. [In English.] They wanted to fight to the last shot! [InGerman.] It continued here and there: white flags out, white flags in.We saw the remains of the German armymarching through our village.They were ragged and starving and their feet were partly wrapped up;they no longer had shoes. They had bloody bandages. They draggedthemselves through the village. They still wanted to fight! No, theydidn’t actually, but there were still SS people there and they wanted tofight and they came with bazookas. Do you know what bazookas are?They were huge. I still can see them. These were used to shoot at tanks.SS people waved their bazookas around and suddenly were in the villageand wanted to fight until the last shell.

One morning in March, early 1945, we heard a loud machine noisein the air and I thought, Airplanes, and went out to look at the sky. Nonein sight. I looked over the fields frommy village to the neighboring villageand saw the tanks coming forward. [In English]: Tanks. Jeeps. I knewthey were Americans and it was the happiest moment of my life. Perhapsthey could have shot, but they didn’t, luckily. It was a wonderful feelingI can’t describe. [In German]: I observed everything: how several menwalked out of our village with white flags in order to hand over the villagewithout a struggle. Then the American tanks came into the village. Itbecame louder and louder.We lived on a hill on the main street and theycame uphill and had to change gears—an indescribable noise! I was

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standing upstairs inmy room at the window andwas not allowed to showhow happy I was because I was only among Germans who didn’t thinkfavorably of these events. I was the only one. I couldn’t share my feelingswith anyone. Not with my aunt because now that the Americans cameit was not what they wanted—it’s difficult to describe how people felt atthe time. But I looked at the Americans and they looked at me. [InEnglish]: They looked like people of another star because they werehealthy and they had clean uniforms and they were really fat. No, I mustsay, fat is not the right word; they were stämmig [brawny], strong, andwe were all so [in German] run down and ragged, badly nourished andlooked pretty pathetic. The Americans looked like completely differentpeople.12 They were in sharp uniforms and neat, and they had anenormous quantity of weapons and materials. For three days and threenights they were always riding through the village. Nothing happened.On the third evening a troop had gotten drunk. They’d found someschnapps. Supposedly there were assaults. I didn’t notice anything, I haveto say. The idea never occurred to me that one could fear the Americans.For me, they’re exactly what I’d hoped for. They stood in the streets andplayed baseball. We saw for the first time these large baseball gloves. Thechildren stood around andwatched. The Americans passed out chocolateand anything else available to the children. From the very beginning,they were friendly. I’d experienced unpleasant events but never anythinghorrible. We heard American music. Next door to us was a guest house/tavern where many Americans were quartered. Everything had beenforbidden.Weheard jazz for the first time. All of that had been previouslyprohibited and all of a sudden we had a feel for [says in English] theAmerican way of life. [In German]: It was nice. Everything loosened up.The Americans were so relaxed in their behavior. I was very happy then.

I was still in Hessen and had to go back to Hamburg. There wereno trains and no cars. In June my mother succeeded in coming fromHamburg to Grossen Linden in order to pick me up. She needed threedays and three nights to get there. Today one arrives in five hours withthe train. We drove back to Hamburg. What an adventure! Three daysand three nights we were on the road. First we were taken by companytrucks in the direction of Hamburg. Then we were dropped off, and we

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stayed overnight in empty train compartments. The next day we traveledsome distance by train to Hannover and couldn’t continue. Then we sataround and saw a freight truck carrying coal. You weren’t permitted toclimb on to it. We jumped up and lay on top of the coal. Then thesefreight cars rode northward very slowly, and it rained and we lay up therein the rain on the coal up until Uelzen, not far fromHamburg. This wasthe end of the second day. In the evening we were in Uelzen, andsuddenly British railroad police rounded up all the people who wereriding on the truck. We were totally black, filthy, and wet. That didn’tbother me at all, I have to say. It was no longer life-threatening. The warwas over, so I was happy. Somewhere we spent the night in a school onstraw. The next day a truck that had taken many refugees loaded us on.Then the third evening wewere inHamburg. I didn’t go to school. Therewasn’t any yet. In summer 1945 courses were organized for usMischlinge,all those who had been thrown out in the early 1940s.

I began to go to school in August 1945 and in October orNovember 1945, I returned to my old class and my old school. Schoolin Hamburg began again. Because, now, why not? I graduated eventhough I’d scarcely gone to school for over two years. I received myhigh school diploma in 1949, and I began to study. Then I married,had two children, gave up my occupation, then took it up again andbegan again to study [in English] special education. [In German] I ama teacher of special education for the deaf and for children with speechdisabilities. I began to write books about Jewish schools and so on. Iwas already sixty when Hamburg University gave me the doctorate formy books about Jewish history. I’m not connected to a political party,but I’m still influenced by my mother. I’ve always been more left-wing.That runs in our family.

After the war, my father and I saw each other again, but he did notcome back per se. He visited us again. I would prefer not to talk aboutit on tape because it is very personal. After the war I asked my mother,“Can we go be with my father now?” She said it was not possible; theywere divorced. I was heartbroken. My father got to know a woman inAmerica, and he asked my mother for a divorce because he could neverbe alone. My mother consented, and they were divorced in wartime: my

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father in America, my mother here. But my father allowed my motherto control his entire compensation matters fromHamburg after the war.My parents, after all, had a close relationship, the same as before. Myfather visited us in Hamburg in 1953 for a quarter year. Without hiswife. He wanted to come back to Germany for good. He didn’taccomplish it. My father died soon after his visit. So ultimately he nevercame back. He supported us generously after the war. We were amongthe first to get packages from him. He provided us with everything:groceries, clothes, and genuine objects of which we no longer venturedto dream. It was hard for my mother because my father had remarriedin the middle of the war. That must have been 1943. He asked her fora divorce by letter. My mother remained alone. I never spoke with herabout it. I can, therefore, only speak poorly. I’m not in the position totalk about it. I think that my parents’ marriage wouldn’t have broken upwithout the intervening circumstances, for my parents had an unheard-of understanding. I believe it was still an exceptionally satisfactorymarriage. I never met his new wife. My father was in New York and laterin Delaware. He got support at first. Later on he worked as a doctor, buthe didn’t succeed in becoming a recognized doctor again. He worked ina large health center. I must look it up. I still have the address somewhere.

Later on he succeeded in learning English, but only with manyattempts, not right away. And he didn’t really rise in the profession as heinitially had. Rather, he worked always more or less in subordinatepositions. He never again achieved self-employment as he had inGermany. My father lived until 1957. I reflect on my parents now, butthen I reflected mainly on my own problems.

Looking back, it’s difficult to say if I saw myself as an outsider. Ialways had friends and was well liked in my class. But I always had thefeeling that I didn’t belong. I was never allowed, for example, to talkabout how we behaved. That didn’t have anything to do with the waysof behaving but had to do with the situation in Nazi Germany. I knewI belonged to a group of people who were held in contempt, persecuted,who had fewer rights, actually no rights at all, who at all times figuredthere had to be arbitrary use of force by the State. And nowhere was Iallowed to talk about myself andmy situation. I always had to try to keep

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silent and inconspicuous. When I was treated with kindness and hadfriends, I was still somehow in an extreme outsider situation. I also hadthe feeling that I always had to behave exceptionally well because I wasreally only tolerated. I was not allowed to render even the smallestimpropriety. I had the feeling I could be called away at anymoment, thatsomebody could throw me out or fire me at any time because I wastolerated only out of grace and mercy.

I would like to define “outsider” but I can no longer define thisevening. I’m too tired, I must admit. An outsider is someone who standsoutside the social group either voluntarily because he has completelydifferent convictions or because other people don’t want to tolerate himin their group. That wasn’t the case for me at all—certainly not in class.In spite of that, I was in a different situation from others. The others hadbrothers and fathers who fought as soldiers and fell in battle. Some ofthe others were Nazis. I always had to keep quiet about many things thatwere very important to me. I was only allowed to talk about them amongclose family members. I always had to be terribly careful.

I told you about my life, and I think you see. At the time, I was ina special situation, and I’ve never completely come out of it. You can’tlive a normal life in Germany if you’ve had this past. My friends todayare all older than I, and they were, more or less, Nazis. Germans werelike that at the time—maybe up to 90 percent were Nazis. There aremany topics that we never discuss with each other, about whichwe talkedat some time or another but about which we no longer want to speak.There are topics on which I, of course, keep silent because for others itwould be embarrassing or unpleasant. In that way I don’t lead a normallife in Germany. I feel free only when I’m in America, Israel, or England.In spite of that, I am, however, here. Somehow I belong. Back then I feltI belonged, yet I actually didn’t. Somehow that kind of feeling remains.When one has been Jewish, one can’t live a normal life in Germany. Mysister makes certain that she absolutely is never put in the position to talkabout this topic. I never talk about it with my sister. For her it’s anabsolute taboo. Otherwise, she couldn’t live in this country. I’d talkabout it again—I’d do that—but somehow it’s always hard. Among myvery dear older friends there are subjects onwhichwe hardly touch.None

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of them were evil Nazis. They weren’t active. They simply believed thatHitler was the great savior of Germany. After the lost war, from 1914 to1918, Germany was very humbled. I think you can say that the peoplefelt unjustly treated. I don’t want to apologize for it, but the people werejust as crazy, and then we had success. Suddenly everything was fineagain. The people didn’t like what came before 1933. There were endlessstreet fights between Nazis and Communists. Suddenly there weren’tanymore, because naturally the Communists had been confined. But forthe people, once again, harmony and order prevailed. That was every-thing. Again, life went upward. People felt they were respected and theyhad work. Germany was rebuilt. Yes, there is this ideology. Somehistorians have said that Hitler just spoke about what people wouldn’tspeak about. That he grabbed onto what many Germans wanted. Thatthey really felt the Jews had taken their jobs. There are so many theories.Germans deified Hitler. They were crazed. They knew the images ofthose fanatic eyes. Horrible. Certainly, there were already roots of thisanti-Semitism that he played on, which made it easier for him to beelected. He built himself up on propaganda. Hitler built his propagandaon this anti-Semitism. It was not only anti-Semitism but rather a hatredof foreigners—and that existed before Hitler. Also, the notion of the“Aryan” or German race as superior to everything else. The inferiors hadthe task only to esteem the master race. The Germans, the master race,must rule over all others and everything that didn’t fit in, that was nothealthy or normal, according to the Nazi norm. Also, art and culturewere wiped out. The primary enemy were the Jews. Many Jews were infinance, doctors, academics. When they killed the Jews, they killed thecore of the culture.

I can’t really say that I have fear now, although I have occupiedmyself lately with this subject of the Third Reich, and my name is alsomentioned in connection with this subject, and sometimes somewhereor other my name has been published, and everyone knows that I do thiswork. In spite of that I have no fear, no, I can’t say I have fear. It is thecase that I don’t live a normal life here. I am not spiritually free. I alsonotice when I am together with friends that they live in another world.One can say I have a different conscience. There is also perhaps a

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collective Jewish conscience. I think I have a part of that. That is a subjectthat changes with the circumstances—if I am together with friends.Everyone has a different end point, a limit. Not that someone doesn’tunderstand and that there are not volumes about which someone canspeak. I was never asked afterward in my circle of friends, “What are youdoing now, how far are you with this work?” and so on. Very seldom.Really, I live in several worlds. Yes, I feel split. On one hand, I have manyJewish friends and also a small circle of acquaintances who concernthemselves with this topic of the past, and on the other hand, I knowpeople who have absolutely nothing to do with this topic and for whomthis topic is entirely remote. I feel Jewish, even though I am not. I cannever become Jewish because I don’t have a Jewish mother. It would bevery difficult, and I don’t intend to do it. However, I feel Jewish, yes.Absolutely. This has been a stressful week. I’m sorry for being so tired.

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CHAPTER S IX

ILSE B

“I was treated differently because I looked Aryan.That helped me a great deal.”

�

I set out for Ilse B.’s house in Grosse Borstel (westernHamburg) on a chilly Sunday in March. Our meeting was setfor 10:00 A.M., but her home was far out and a friend and I gotlost after departing from the train. After a few phone calls toIlse, I figured out the location and arrived at 11:30. A well-preserved, beautiful, and smiling olderwoman opened the door.Ilsewas tall and thinwith finewhite hair. She dressed as if readyfor church: She wore an exquisite peach cashmere sweater, awool brown-blue skirt, and carefully chosen jewelry. She wasnot botheredby the delay, but her nervousnesswas immediatelydiscernible. It took some time to arrange ourselves in separatechairs. I was conscious of her jewelry the entire interview: thepearl circle pin, green-colored pearls, black onyx ring, green

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coral bracelet, and a large watch. Her house with its cherryfurniture and fourOriental rugs, like herself, exuded expensivetaste. Pictures of her two grandchildren, both with dark hair,and four colorful paintings and sketches, one of her daughter,dominated the room. She had numerous animal china pieces—a goose with a blue ribbon and a yellow egg candle, and twodogs—and a collection of thimbles and old books.

Before the interview, Ilse had spent time hunting forinformation and items that she had saved from the Third Reichto share withme, whichwas ironic considering her talk was oneof the most difficult to get into and to sustain. Ilse had troublewith her memory, and also would center on certain phrases orterms, such as “Stikum,” which kept her off the deeper, moresensitive topic at hand. A part of her had definitely lost interestin her past and the Germany that was behind her. She wantedher life to be like a newhousewithout the ghosts. She, likemanyof the other women, could not comment effectively on herparents’ personalities. When I asked if she made any educatedguesses about her mother’s silence, she ignored me. Ilse wascurious if I always did these interviews and said, “It’s nice youare doing that.” She wondered if people in the United Statesliked to read books about the Nazi time. I said yes, very much,and sometimes it seems we are better informed.

Ilse had called me after she saw a notice in the EppendorferWeekly and invited me to talk about her life as aMischling.Hermother was Jewish and her father, “Aryan.” But after the firsthour, primarily of superficial conversation, I doubted shewould talk about her past in depth. Indeed, she provided onlyvignettes of that critical part of her life and did not appeareager to fill in missing details, no matter how many times Iasked her. She was dependent on questioning and, unlike theother women, did not offer up a subject on her own or answerany questions with long stories. She cut her replies short withdeliberate intention. Shemanaged to avoid or change the topicas often as possible, usually by offering me more food

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(meringues), drink (coffee and sherry), or slippers, and onnumerous occasions she asked if the tape recorder was stillrunning. Ilse played with her hands obsessively, and at onepoint teared up. In the middle of our talk, she took off herpearls, periodically picked them up, played with them, putthem down, and later put them back around her neck. She notonly played with all her jewelry but also her coffee cup andlater her long-anticipated glass of sherry. Constant, restlessbody movements, nervous laughter, alternately whisperingand raising her voice, heavy breathing in and out, and strangenoises punctuated her conversation. She simultaneously dis-played obvious discomfort and extreme self-composure, beingcareful to avoid labeling herself as a “half Jew” when sheclearly felt Deutschblutig, pure German. She spoke in a middle-class dialect of Hamburg, what is called German gutbürgerlich.

Ilse placed me both close and removed from her. Becauseshe addressed me with Sie, the formal form of “you,” it wouldfollowthat shewouldaddressmeasMs.Crane,but she familiarlycalled me bymy first name throughout the interview. Accordingto German language rules, if she used my first name she wouldaddress me with du, the familiar form of “you.” Ilse often talkedabout herself using inclusive generalities, such as “for a younggirl,” instead of “for me,” not speaking of herself specifically, asif she were someone else. She says of her own mother, “It washard for amother.” A few of the otherwomen, namelyRuthYost,also displayed this understandable tendency to separate ordistance themselves from their personal experiences.

Ilse was very interested in my family background, askingme questions about my grandfather, his life as a doctor, hisemigration, my grandparent’s religion, andmy father through-out our talk. She was concerned about what other Mischling

women had said and was particularly disturbed when I toldher that there were differences. She wanted her stories tocorroboratewith those of the others, perhaps so that shewouldnot question the validity of her own experience. She asked if

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the otherMischlingwomen felt like outsiders andwas surprisedthat they still did, even though she admits to feeling this wayherself. She wanted to know if I was going to analyze all ofthis later, and contrary to many Germans’ preference forscientific inquiry, Ilse was upset that I might be looking at theThird Reich scientifically, which she said was impossible todo. I assured her I was not. When the topic came up of takingher photograph, she asked why I needed photos, shied awayfrom this idea, and said no. A year later she conceded.

We discussed how men talk about their lives, about thefact that we have many accounts by men who have told theirstories, but not bywomen. Thewomenwho survived theThirdReich do not feel as important. They do not as readily tell theirstories even though they probably have more to say becausewomen were immersed in family situations and they talkedwith and supported each other. While men worked outside ofthe family and came home at night, women experienced the“everyday.” Some theorists have even claimed that women, inpart, caused the Third Reich. With my mention of the ThirdReich, Ilse said, “The Third Reich—I haven’t heard that inyears.”

Ilse did not know much about current events that hark-ened back to theThirdReich. I had a discussionwith her aboutAltona-Ottensen, where a shopping center was built on aJewish cemetery. It made the news in Germany as well as theUnited States. After some Rabbis checked into the religiouslaws and after some negotiation, the developer agreed not tobuild a basement or underground parking. The graves weremoved elsewhere and in a conciliatory effort a memorial wasconstructed in the mall. Many people are upset and say thatthe graves were desecrated. A similar incident happened inBavaria, where there is a lot of radicalism: Over ten years ago,a memorial inscribed with the names of Jews who were killedwas desecrated, with the names obliterated. Ilse said she hadnot heard about this.

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The time with Ilse was full of laughs, sometimes to avoidpain, sometimes in response to a mix-up with words orcomments we made. She could laugh easily at herself and withme. Because I kept asking her about her mother, we joked that“we were coming back to Freud again.” Ilse was rarelysarcastic, bitter, or sentimental. For the most part, she wascontent, easy going, and accepting of how her life had evolved.As far as a psychological study, Ilse was intriguing and had avery hidden personality. In my notes I wrote about Ilse Sie istauch geschlossen (she is also closed) but always endearing.

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I was born a Lange. I am seventy-four years old. My mother is Jewish. Mymother’s entire family lived in Hamburg during my childhood and wasvery nice. Later they were all torn apart. My father was an “Aryan.” Hisfamily was not so nice to us. In Hamburg we lived on Bismarck Street, inEimsbüttel. My daughter went to school on Bismarck Street. Funny, isn’tit? I went to the Curschmannschule Gymnasium [university prep highschool] onCurschmann Street, andmy brother went to trade school. I wasconfirmed here in Hamburg at Matthias Church on Hoheluftchaussee.Our parents thought confirmation would be best for us.

My parents got married in 1916. They probably met each other twoyears before. That wasn’t a topic that we discussed. I was born in 1921and my brother in 1920. My parents were in a “mixed marriage.”[Exhales heavily.] For my father, it was difficult. Later, in the Nazi years,he had to sell his business and became an employee at a company. It wasprobably 1935. And then things got bad for us. [Whispers.] Our motherwas a nice woman. At first the people in our house still said hello to her.Then they stopped. No one said hello to her any more, and if they didspeak to her, they said “Heil Hitler.” Our mother was not allowed togreet people with “Heil Hitler.” When they greeted me this way, I couldnot answer. Then there were insults. Arguments broke out. Because ofthis, my father had a hard time. We children did too. My brother was

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very sensitive. Embarrassed. You know what I mean, don’t you? It didn’tmatter to me. At the beginning of the war, a pretty bad time, people saidto my mother such things like “Judenweib” [“Jewish woman”—deroga-tory]. But later some of the neighbors’ sons and some of the sons of peoplethat lived in our house were killed. The young husband of the womanabove us was killed. We heard her crying. She didn’t say “Heil Hitler”any more. She spoke in a very kind manner to my mother even beforethe end of the war after she had lost her husband. The Nazi time wasover for her. My mother was sorely afraid of the other neighbors. TheseKräute [slang for “Germans”] had greetedmymother with “Judenweib,”but that was the least of it. We were glad that we were able to get intoour apartment with just a “Judenweib.” They could have pushed herdown the steps, and she wouldn’t have been able to defend herself or tosay “He pushed me down the steps.” It happened to others but not tomy mother. We knew a woman who was Jewish and her husband was“Aryan,” and someone tripped her and she fell down the steps. She wasaboutmymother’s age.Her daughter was as old as I was. But she couldn’tsay “He tripped me and made me fall down the steps.” Then he wouldhave said, “You’re lying!” No one could do anything. One could onlystand by and close the door and be happy when one had peace. Mymother only had to endure the name-calling. Luckily no one everphysically accosted her. She never went out at night, and whenever shehad to go anywhere she never went on the bus or the streetcar. She juststayed at home all the time like a prisoner in her own house.

My grandfather, my mother’s father, wore the yellow star. He had togive up his apartment. He had to go to a “home,” of sorts. He lived on theBundestrasse near the university in a little Jewish Pension. It really wasn’ta Pension—he had a room there. We visited him and he told us that weshouldn’t come. He didn’t want anything to happen to us, but I visitedhim. I would walk him home some days. [Her voice becomes shaky.] Theboys threw rocks at me and yelled, “Why are you walking with a Jew?” Iwas blonde when I was a child.My grandfather said, “Go home, my dear.”I didn’t want to. The boys did not attack me because I was a girl withblonde curls. It was very difficult for our father. And my brother too.Strange how the men seem to take hardship more seriously. Can that be?

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Wewomen are stronger. They gave all the responsibility tome.Mymotheralways said, “Ilse cando it.”Me. Ilse did everything. Iwasmore courageous.

In school there were no problems, at first. The teachers were veryrespectable. There were four mixed (Jewish and “Aryan”) children in ourclass. It was a girl’s Gymnasium. Back then the boys and girls wereseparated. Three Jewish girls emigrated just in time. They were smart.In their case both parents were of Jewish descent. The rest of us stayed.[Makes a kissing noise.] Later it got harder for me. The teachers werenot very cordial to us anymore. I graduated in 1936, so 1933 was whenit began. Maybe even one or two years earlier. For a while it was okay;these people were really good teachers. When I was finished with school,nobody asked, “Well, what are you?” Nobody asked. Did you know Iwasn’t allowed to keep studying as a half-Jewish girl?My brother couldn’teither. As a close second, I became an employee at a business firm. Iearned a lot of money and didn’t need to defend myself there. I was notso stupid after all. Nobody asked, “Are you?” It was later that they alwaysasked what I was. Yes, for our family [breathes in slowly] at first it wasnot so bad. Are you recording this? And then bit by bit it changed. Inthe [breathes out] company where I was, nobody ever asked. Nobody.They didn’t even speculate because I was blonde. But I believe that theywouldn’t have asked anyway. They asked when the boys had to go to thefront and came back wounded. Then it was the Jews’ fault, right?

Once the doorbell rang and three SS officers were standing outside.With those horrible boots. Both my uncles were officers in the FirstWorldWar. They had received the Iron Cross. Young people hardly evergot the Iron Cross, but they were very good, engaged officers. Goodsoldiers. The SS men tore apart my mother’s closets, threw everythingout. They were looking for information about her brothers. At that timethere was no bank, and our mother had saved a little money, which layunderneath a pile of bedsheets. They took everything. My familycouldn’t say a word. They were happy when the men left, happy that theSS men didn’t take anyone with them.

It got worse when our relatives were taken away. There were fivegirls and three boys in my mother’s family. My Jewish uncles were inNeuengamme concentration camp. My mother and I were able to get

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two of them out. We scratched together all the money we had, and mymother went all over the place with me to try to convince the officialsthat one uncle was planning to leave Germany within three days. Hemade it too. He [breathes in through nose] immigrated to America. Thesecond one did too. The third one was beaten to death in a concentrationcamp. My mother was supposed to get him out too. I was young. I wasblonde. And men like young people. So I talked to the officials.1 Mymother sat next to me. But we weren’t able to get all three released.

My mother had to get her brother out of Neuengamme by going tothe Rathaus [city hall], or maybe it was some army post. I don’t knowanymore what these organizations were called. I just know that she wentthere trembling and returned trembling. She closed the door to her room.Perhaps she thought she was going to be taken away.

One of my uncles came home from Neuengamme. He was there atleast six years [this seems a long time]. He was not married, or not anymore. Our mother had very little money and she bought twenty or sopieces of cake on the day my uncle was supposed to return. Before wekids, our mother, our father, our uncle, and an aunt started to drink ourcoffee, the cakes were all gone. He ate them very quickly. He lookedunbelievable.He scared us children to death.He had such a skinny throatand a small head. It was horrible. He was starving! It was an image thatmy brother and I remembered for years.

My mother had fetched him with a taxi. She never saw anyone looklike that. I was already working. I must have been about eighteen. It wasa shock. For three days we tried to get him over the border; otherwise,he would have been dead. Most people didn’t know he was there—hecouldn’t be seen. The few days before he went to America, he was withus, with my parents. We hid him. In any case, he didn’t come out. Noone came for him. My mother had papers for him that showed he wasreleased; otherwise she couldn’t have gotten him out. He was freiwild[fair game]. Whoever wanted to take him could have, but no one did,thank God. He went to America. Those who say that nothing everhappened at Neuengamme are crazy. They worked the prisoners todeath. Some have said that Neuengamme was completely harmless, thatit was only a work camp. My uncle was not allowed to say anything;

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therefore, out of fear, he didn’t. He had had a big business that hadalready been closed down. We packed his bags and took him to the trainstation, and, like many other Jewish people, he went over the Pyreneesto Spain. He went from there to America, where he married an Americanwoman, and then after ten years he returned to Hamburg. He was sohomesick. His sister was in Hamburg. Most of us thought that he wasonly in a work camp. No, no one saw a prisoner that looked as bad asmy uncle did. But all my uncles had it hard over there in America. Theydidn’t know the language; they had no money; they were in a foreignland; they had nothing but a suitcase. I don’t know anymore where theywent. Probably New York. Strangely enough, I heard from cousins twiceor three times removed who got out. They took some of their clothingand furniture and cut off the leg of a chair or table and hid their jewelryand money in it, and that’s how they got to America. They had a lot ofmoney. The others didn’t have anything. I had relatives too, the Simons,who had a large department store in Peine.2 I visited them often when Iwas a child. Suddenly they arrived in Hamburg with all their earthlypossessions. We had to rent them a room in Eimsbüttel. They were ableto get out, thank God, before 1933. But they had to leave their wholehouse and everything behind. My aunt from Peine sewed on a sewingmachine in order to survive after they emigrated. Freedom is important.But you had to work hard in America too. They wanted and had to getout of Germany. There was no peace here.

My mother didn’t visit my uncle that was beaten to death. She triedto get him out like the other two uncles, who were already gone, I think.He was the youngest one and someone said that he would be released,and then my parents got a letter saying that he had tried to flee and wasshot. But that’s not true, because we heard from another prisoner in thecamp who visited us after the war that Nazis had beaten him with apitchfork or with a shovel. They beat him to death. The prisoners wereweak and they had to work. They were all so thin and emaciated withthin necks and tiny heads like the other uncle I told you about. Heprobably couldn’t work as hard as they were pressing him to. This wasnot in Neuengamme, but another camp, probably Ahrensburg.3 It wasnear Hamburg. I don’t remember anymore. It was not Theresienstadt—

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my grandfather was killed there. My mother had to go get her brother’sthings, his watch and his papers. That was never his watch or his clothes.He had never worn anything like them. It couldn’t be changed, nothingcould be said, and there was just no money. My mother repressed heranguish and always helped. Yes, our family was really split up. And sothe family just kept getting smaller.

� � �

My one aunt got hauled away to Poland.4 I visited her in Poland. Shelived in a ghetto. [Breathes in.] In any case, my mother called me atthe office in Poland where I worked. I was in Krakau for a while, in aGerman film company. I didn’t have anything to do with film; I justdid secretarial work. I had a pleasant office and worked with nice ladiesand gentlemen and no one knew that I was half Jewish. They mighthave had an idea; at any rate, no one said anything. My mother calledme and said that my aunt and my cousin were taken from the houseand that they were at the train station in Altona (now a part ofHamburg). She went to Altona and brought underwear for them. Iremembered that for years. Mymother just went. That was mymother.She was bold and brave. I’m like that too. At the train station, nobodybut Nazis were around, and they knocked off the Jews’ hats. [Ilse makesa sound effect that conveys this action.] She didn’t say anything. That’show my mother was. She simply said, “I was there, I saw Aunt Jennyand Ruthchen. I brought them underwear.” She did similar things forall the brothers and sisters: The one uncle who went over the border;the second uncle too; the third was killed.

My aunt and cousin, Ruth, who was two years younger than I, weretaken toWolbrom5 andBergen-Belsen [awork camp] after Kristallnacht.Later I visited them there. I will tell you this: Bergen-Belsen was calledthe holding camp.6 There were all these rules about German men andJewish girls—they were not allowed to be together. Well, Nazis rapedthis girl and my aunt. It is unbelievable. Where could I have gotten thatinformation back then? The two of them were not allowed to disclose it.

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They only told me. That’s how it was. There were also field prostitutesback then—Jewish women. Also horrible. Even worse, they sealed upthe apartment so that my uncle, who was away on a business trip, camehome and wasn’t able to get back into his own apartment. He couldn’tget in. He was a Jew. He couldn’t tell anyone. He came to us and thensome other relatives. We, and he, were lucky. He had saved some moneyand was able to get away, to leave Germany. He had a bad time of it, buthe did get away. Stimmt, stimmt, stimmt, stimmt. [That’s right.]

My aunt and cousin would call me every once in a while on thetelephone. I had a boyfriend in Krakow who was a Luftwaffe officer, avery nice young man; we liked each other very much. He wanted to getthe two of them out—Ruth and my aunt. But as I said before, I hadnowhere to put them. My mother had nowhere for them in Hamburgeither. They couldn’t get over the border. It was impossible. It was aterrible, terrible time.

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I must tell you this story: I went from Krakow to Wolbrom ghettowhere my aunt and my cousin lived in order to have shoes and an outfitmade for me because the Jewish tailors are good workers. This was myexcuse for going. I had my little radio with me—well, it wasn’t so little,it was about this big. [She indicates the size with her hands.] You coulddo that as a young person then. We unscrewed all the light bulbs andplugged in the radio—only Jews and I—and we hung up a blanket asa makeshift roof and we all sat under the blanket and listened to theradio. It was the BBC—dee dee dee deeeeeee, dee dee dee deeeeeeee[She sings the opening phrase of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.] Myheart beat nervously, frantically, but we were hearing the truth on theradio. We were listening to the British. It was very dangerous. But Iwas a German girl and fairly pretty to the men in those days, so I couldhide stuff under my clothes and go undetected, or talk my way out ofsituations. I was alone, but friends in Krakow thought I was with aboyfriend. I never said where I was going, but I went to see my aunt

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and my cousin and the men who were there. We were a group. TheGerman guards at the ghetto always wondered why I brought so manysuitcases and bags with me. I told them I had my clothes with me, butit was actually groceries—bread and rice, and grocery cards too. Theynever looked through German girls’ bags. I dared to do it. They couldhave hauled me off or killed me. I knew what I was doing wasdangerous. I was already twenty-two or twenty-three, and I knew whatI was doing. I survived. [She pauses.] We had hoped that someonewould come and save us. The Americans or the British. But theRussians were closer—we were in the East. So the Russians came, andthey were no saviors. They had raped many women. Young womenwere raped as far as Berlin. But by that time, I was already back inHamburg. That didn’t happen to us there, but it was terrible for thosewho stayed in the East. Just like today in Bosnia and places where thereis war and murder. One day my aunt and cousin called me from theghetto and said, “Ilse, they are taking us away!” They were gone. I neversaw them again. My aunt and cousin did not survive Bergen-Belsen.They were killed. [Ilse whispers.] They didn’t survive.

I had a very good childhood before this all began. During this time,because of all the excitement, my uncles being taken away, my aunt takento Bergen-Belsen, and nobody knowing where they were, I lost all of myhair because of nervousness. Do you understand? Not all of my hair. Ihad a lot of hair, but now I only have a few left! At that time it wasmodern in Germany to wear turbans. You are young, but ask yourmothers, they still remember. At that time, wool turbans were popularand I wore them. Big chunks of my hair fell out when the Gestapo [secretstate police] came to get my aunts. It was a matter of nerves. And theworst thing was, I couldn’t tell anyone why. No one knew why. Mymother had a doctor, and he was very fond of my mother and my father.He knew that my mother was Jewish, and he knew why my hair wasfalling out. He gave me a tincture that I had to put on in the eveningsand wash out in the mornings. But now I’m okay. [She laughs.] It cameback. I didn’t tear my hair out as some women do when their nerves arebad. It just fell out. All from nerves.

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My mother wasn’t taken away because she was protected; my fatherwas “Aryan.” I don’t know if other women who had “Aryan” husbandswere taken away or not. I do know that our mother was taken to a bigmirrored room in the townhall.7 They took lots of Jewishmen andwomenthere. They couldn’t even move because they were constantly beingobserved. How she got out of there was always a mystery to us. Thisroundup must have had to do with some setback during the war—theFührer must have lost some big battle and he blamed the Jews. The Jewswere guilty, of course, so the Jews were locked up in the Spiegelsaal[mirrored hall] and harassed.Mymother never said anything about it. Shewas locked up for about two days. Although she was not actually assaultedor attacked, she was intimidated and cursed. It was not a census action,just pure harassment. The Jews were not counted. At the moment I can’tthink of any other similar situations. I wonder, though, as I’m talking withyou about it, how my mother was able to get a grocery card as a Jew. Thatis astonishing! It just occurred tome. I found a clothing card for shoes withlittle punches, but there were no shoes, so the little punches didn’t helpanyway. It did not cause any problems that she had to shop separately frommy father or have to go to certain places to shop. Some women who hadgrocery cards were only permitted to go to certain stores. She didn’t needher ID in all the stores; she needed only the cards. My father got the cardsand gave them to us—that could be how my mother got them.

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I was treated differently because I looked “Aryan.” That helped me verymuch, a great deal. Although [rattles coffee cup], strangely, the relativeswere all taken away. I was blonde; my brother had dark hair but he didn’tlook like a Jew. Gerd, my uncle who immigrated to Ohio, looked like aJew. [Her voice gets quieter after I mention “looking Jewish” is astereotype.]Of course, inHitler’s Jewish propaganda everyone had distinctJewish facial features. Would you like some coffee? The time when all thishappened is a long way back for me. [Ilse is visibly uncomfortable, gets upto get coffee items, and tries to change the subject.]

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� � �

I had a hard childhood, you understand? Look here: This is my deadmother’s identification card. With the “J” on it. Yes, with a “J.” Mymother always had to carry it with her. We all had to carry IDs. Wechildren didn’t have a “J” on ours. Our father didn’t either. When wesat in the train or the bus, we were checked. We couldn’t, or ratherMother couldn’t, travel. But sometimes you took the train, say toBergedorf. Then the ticket checkers would come by. We had to showour IDs—our mother’s with the “J” on hers and Paula “Sara” listed asher name. There were officers who closed the passes right away and gavethem back to our mother. [Ilse demonstrates with her hands.] Theydidn’t say anything. There were others who were really nasty about it tomy mother. We survived it. I looked for the ID yesterday. I found it too.The name “Sara” was forced on her by the laws. Terrible! [Ilse says thisloudly and high-pitched.] The Jewish men were given the name “Israel.”“Sara” was practically, at that time, a curse word. Oddly enough, no oneever called her that. Only once in our house was our mother slandered.I was not because I was only fourteen or fifteen. But that could have easilyhappened. Today the young women are still naming their children Sara.I can’t understand that. In the United States women are named Sara,and the name is not recognized as a Jewish name. Children are baptizedSara. Here in Germany too. Our grandfather was named Abraham. Ihave his identification card, but I don’t know where. I couldn’t find ityesterday. The name “Sara” was always an insult for our mother.

My mother had a friend, an “Aryan” woman, very nice, who diedrecently. [Breathes in.] When the SS came to our house she went outonto the balcony because she was so afraid they would see her, an“Aryan.” They would have heckled her. Do you know what I mean? [Ilseimitates SS in deep voice]: “What are you doing here in a Jewish house?”That’s the way it was. It is frightening to read about this time inHamburg, but it is much worse to have lived here! Reading is not thathard; you are removed. But we lived in that time and that was terrible.You can’t imagine it. But I have nice friends who still call today. Thewoman who just telephoned has been my friend since I was a teenager.

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She never left me alone. Never! That is nice, isn’t it? Maybe it happenedthat way because my brother and I did not look Jewish. I could imagineif I had a nose like that or black curly hair, if I looked outwardly Jewish,that they might have kept their distance from me. I don’t know. Weplayed tennis. We went to the cinema. We did everything. Our fatherwas allowed to go to the theater with us, but our mother could not. Shewasn’t allowed. [Ilse’s voice becomes high-pitched.]My father went withme if he wanted to see a movie, but that wasn’t such an important thingin those days. Even as a “half Jew,” you were allowed to go to the movies.I did not have an IDwith a “J.” Butmy life was over at seventeen. Duringthe war you couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t play tennis; I couldn’t haveany parties or social gatherings. It was hard. The boys were all gone; theyhad all been drafted. No fun.

My brother was in the war at first. He came back after two years.What a stroke of luck that they couldn’t use any Jews or “half Jews.” Hehad to work here in the Hamburg prison—he had to watch prisoners—Jewish prisoners too—in Fuhlsbüttel. He had guard duty. That was hard[Ilse whispers] for my brother. He, as a “half Jew,” had to guard Jews.They worked on the streets. That was part of the forced constructionwork. Many women had to do this as well, but I didn’t.

In 1945 my brother, my mother, and I were in the moors [country-side]. That was a really bad time, shortly before the end of the war. Myfather told us, “Leave Hamburg—it will either be bombed or they willdo something to the remaining Jews.” My father had told people inHamburg that we were vacationing. He said, “My wife is sick and shewent to the country with the children.” My brother and I no longerworked at that point. We left under the pretense that my mother wassick. We rented a little room in the country because there they didn’tknow what was going on, and we had a little vacation. Later we learnedthat theNazis had supposedly taken away all the Jews, also the “half Jews”[in Hamburg]. We were protected because we were in the countrysidefor about a quarter of a year. [Long pause.] My brother rode his bike toHamburg to visit my father. It was far but in those times that’s how itwas. We rode bikes. It was about 30 or 40 kilometers, but young peopledid that then.We lived privately, andwe had a kitchen so that ourmother

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could cook. My husband, Karl, whom I married in 1945, was shot in thewar. In those times it was called a Heimatschuss [the injury he receivedqualified him to be sent home from the war]. He was shot in the armand he had his arm in a sling and came to Buchholz8 to the country.Then our father told us, “Go to the hospital. Karl is there and has thebread.” In Berlin they always let the wounded through with their breadcards first. We always had to wait three hours in line for bread orvegetables, but my husband got through because he was wounded. Sobecause of that it went well for us. Yes, when you look back, it was nottoo bad. When we returned to Hamburg—we had a big house, fiverooms, I believe—we had to rent out the rooms. My father had to rentthem out, and not for money. It was obligatory. He had to. We houseda married couple who later moved out and there was an old man whogot the half room that used to be my brother’s. We felt so sorry for him.Mymother always gave him a little something—turnip soup or whateverwas available because he was almost starving, the poor guy. He was allalone. We were five people. My husband came with us from thecountryside. The renter was not Jewish, and he did not know that mymother was Jewish. He did not slander Jews; he was neutral.

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This is what I wanted to tell you, Cynthia. I am afraid that people aretalking too much. Not about “mixed” people in particular, but aboutour whole history in general. About the Holocaust. About the past. Thepast fifty years. I am afraid that it is creating a lot of hate. You’ve heardthat we have young people with these boots again, haven’t you? They aregoing after the Turks, the Jews, the Kurds, and anyone who lives andthinks differently than they do. I am afraid that we should be doing less,you know how I mean that? My brother called yesterday and said, “Tellthe young ladies that there will soon be repercussions because of toomuch talking.” So there should be less. In America it is probably a littledifferent. The people there are a lot more interested. I think the paperspresently are full of this “fifty years ago,” and friends of mine are

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complaining about it. They say that it was the same thing in Vietnamtoo. And, well, what do I know? These things are happening everywhere,in Rwanda and all over the world. It didn’t just happen in Germany withthe Jewish people. It is happening in Bosnia. The Serbs are fighting theCroats, and killing and torturing and mistreating. Because of this weshould, at least in Germany [whispers], be careful with this topic. It isprobably different in America.

What do the other women from “mixed marriages” say? Do theysay the same things as I do? Maybe it depends on whether the motheror father is Jewish. I had a friend whose mother was “Aryan” and thefather Jewish. He was a teacher at the Wilhelm Gymnasium and had adoctorate in physics. A very gifted man. A Jewish man. He convertedto Protestantism. His children were confirmed. Nothing helped. Hedied in Theresienstadt. He remained a Jew, even though he converted.TheNazis found every single one of them. They were that detailed withtheir files. It was terrible. In Germany the government still knowseverything, at least about people’s religious orientations. They still do.It is all written down.

In my opinion, I can tell you exactly why Hitler came to power.Germany had a bad time. Everyone was unemployed. [Ilse speaks in astorytelling tone of voice, with occasional laughter.] Nobody hadanything to do. And the Jewish people all had a lot of money. Theyhad brains and were intelligent. The Jewish people were also hardworkers. The others weren’t; they were dumb. The Germans are dumb;they still are. Jealousy was a factor. And that is how Hitler came topower. He was able to practically catch his people in a cage. They allscreamed and yelled. When I think of the way the women adored theirFührer, it was insane. Do you know what I mean? I can still hear Hitleryelling in the back of my head. We were always afraid. I always gotchills down my spine. All because of fear. Do you understand? [Imention that the intelligentsia persecuted the Jews too.] A certaingroup of them did. But there were other groups that stood up for theJews as well. Groups from the Wehrmacht. Officers. Some of themstood up for the Jews. They weren’t supposed to. The mother of myfriend called me after the war was over and said, “Ilse, is it true that the

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Jews were gassed? Is it true that the Jews were taken away?” I said, “Ofcourse!” They all didn’t know. It was that secret. You couldn’t get itout of anyone. The people were all afraid to say anything. They weren’tallowed to say anything. Some people said they saw the trains and knewthat the Jews were going somewhere, but very few. No one was allowedto pass this on. If they had spoken, they might have been taken away.It was an unfree environment. [We laugh because this statement seemsto drastically simplify the situation.]

� � �

My mother was only a housewife, a good mother and housewife. Myparents were not open, but closed. I can’t tell you why, I don’t know.Maybe the time she lived in left its impression on her. My father didn’tsay much either, before and during the war. My brother was also veryclosed. It is only now, after so many years, that he will say somethingnow and then. Something that I never knew had affected him. Myparents were hard workers, orderly and quiet, so that no one could doanything to them, say anything nasty about them. They were asanonymous as possible. That was the time period. It left a strongimpression on the people. Puberty was difficult.We couldn’t talk aboutthings during that whole time period. I was very reserved. My friendsfrom school were happy and free, could laugh, play sports, and learn atrade. I couldn’t. For a young girl going through puberty that is hard.Our mother always said, “Don’t say anything, be quiet, don’t worryabout it.” What else could she say, right? She would console me and Iwould read. I still meet with my school friends sometimes, but it’s beenfifty or sixty years now. I couldn’t talk to them in my youth. I didn’thave a single friend I could talk to during my school days. You couldtalk about boys but not about the fact that you were Jewish. For a younggirl, it was terrible. There were no more Jews in Hamburg, and if therewere, then only “half Jews” like me. I could talk to them and do thingstogether, but they didn’t want to say much either. They were just asreserved. This topic was taboo, you understand?

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I can’t say anything about my mother. She was so “Stikum” [close-mouthed]. Do you know the expression? That’s actually a Jewishexpression. She said nothing. She was quiet. She never came out ofherself, like a tortoise. When you can’t ask any questions at all, it’s liketalking to a wall. She said nothing but “Leave me alone.” Of course Iwanted to know why she was so quiet, and I tried to find out. But shenever wanted to talk about it. She always got so excited when I did. Shesaid, “Leave me in peace.” She lost practically all her brothers and sisters.It had to have been dreadful. But she said nothing. She simply kept itinside. She kept quiet. And my father didn’t say much, probably becausehe didn’t want to dishearten or burden us children.

I always had the feeling that my brother was ashamed. When mymother came in, he left. When we were downstairs by the front door andsomeone came on a bike, then he would leave. That is hard for a motherto deal with. He was ashamed of his mother. Oh God, I don’t want toinsinuate. . . . He loved his mother, but when he brought boys over, andthey stood downstairs talking, he knew our mother was Jewish, and hewas ashamed.What can you say about that? Boys are different than girls.I am a hard person. I can take more. You have to. [She laughs.] Ourmother used to say, whenever there was something going on, even in theNazi era, “Don’t worry about that, my Ilse will do it.” That was me. Shenever said, “My son will do it.” It was just me. She knew she had moresupport from me than from my brother. Up until her death it was thatway.My brother stuck closer to his family, but not with our mother. Yes,that’s the way it was. I have a good relationship with my brother. [Shespeaks quickly and quietly.] But we hardly talked about those thingswhen we were children and later we both got married. Then we didn’ttalk about it either. Now as we are getting older we have started to talkabout it more. Now the time is coming. We didn’t have time to discussthis topic twenty years ago. Our children were still small and we wereworking. Now we are both retired. The children are out of the house,married. There are grandchildren.We have more time and things are lesshectic. Now the past is starting to come out.

I coped all those years because I was young. When the war wasover in 1945, I got married. Of course, the situation with my uncle

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certainly left an impression on me. But how we coped with it I can’tsay. [She pauses.]

They had hoped that everything would pass. One always thought,“Either it will be this way until the end of the war or we will survive itand things will get better.” My mother lived quite a long time; my fatherhas been dead for thirty years already. He didn’t live very long. She wasalmost ninety-three—my mother the Jew! She was immensely strong.He was only sixty. But that’s how it was.

Leaving Germany was not even discussed. My mother’s youngestsister immigrated to America. She died of sadness and homesickness.My mother’s other sister was killed. Three remained. As I said, therewere five girls in her family. One of them died the year before last. Shewas eighty-eight. Also a Jew. Both of them were married to “Aryans.”They survived somehow. Our mothers were lucky that the men stoodby them, that they didn’t say, “I want to get divorced. I can’t live witha Jew.” They stayed with their wives, and that was a plus for ourmothers, right? And that’s why we never even thought of leaving.

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My family did not celebrate Hanukkah, only Christmas and otherholidays in the German tradition. But Jewish people celebratedGerman holidays. There are people who celebrate both. For us childrenit was probably a lot nicer that way, to celebrate Christmas instead ofHanukkah. Here is something strange: The church in the Ober Street,near Rothenbaumchaussee, used to be a synagogue. NorddeutscheRundfunk (NDR), a radio station, now has offices there. Once Iwanted to hear a Sunday broadcast at this building where I had notbeen since the war. I asked, “What is this?” And a man replied, “Why,that’s the old synagogue.” We sat inside the old synagogue. [She speaksvery quietly.] That was strange for me because I had been there a fewtimes before at weddings of my mother’s Jewish friends. But I hadn’tbeen there very often.

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� � �

My father never thought about divorcing my mother. Never! He wasvery good to her. Our entire Jewish family was very close and stucktogether. My father’s side, the “Aryan” side of the family, protested myparents getting married. I had uncles on my father’s side—they nevervisited us. Mmm. It was very hard for my father. He then probablywent to see them alone. They didn’t visit us because my mother wasJewish. Surely that was the reason. I had one uncle who lived inBlankenese. He had a lot of money but he never even gave one Markto help. But it doesn’t matter. It’s forgotten. For us children there wereno differences between our relationships with our mother and father,none at all. We were lucky our father was very good to our mother.Many men who were “Aryan,” or the women who were “Aryan,” lefttheir partners. We were lucky because our father didn’t earn muchmoney. Money was very tight, but we were able to make it. We didn’tlet anything get out into the open. Today people talk to their neighbors.We weren’t allowed to say anything. Do you understand? We lived amore anonymous life. We closed the door to the apartment and hopedto be left alone. I first noticed that things were odd, and that our homelife was different from other families when they found out that mymother was Jewish, and when they noticed that my father had givenup his business. We began to have hard times with money. I was stillgoing to school. I left school in 1936. That must have been 1931, 1932,1933. I was about eleven or twelve years old then. I realized what itmeant for me. My father lost his entire business. We didn’t get anymoney back during the postwar compensations. My father had toomuch pride. He was too forgiving. He didn’t write down any amounton the forms after the war. There are people who are like that. But mybrother and I got a stipend to help with our vocational training.Looking back, my brother and I did get that. It wasn’t a lot, but it wassomething. [She laughs.] My father remained a private entrepreneur,like he was before as a shopkeeper. It was not easy for an older man todo this. He was a salesman and traveled around with a carpetbag. He

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sold suit fabric out of his suitcase. That was his whole line of work. Hewasn’t a tailor; there were numerous tailors back then. He always soldfabric and similar items.

My father was a very practical man. He was a good German. Not aNazi! Heavens, no.Hewas a goodGermanwho never went on the wrongside of the law.My brother and I are that way too!We are goodGermans.We like our Germany, except for its history, of course. My father neverwould have done anything bad. [When asked to define a “goodGerman,”Ilse hesitates and stutters.] Yes, well, he didn’t put down Germany, justHitler and this whole behavior that came from Hitler. But he lovedGermany. He loved his homeland. And his siblings. [Breathes in.] AndHamburg. Maybe I am saying too much, but my father was a straight,honest man who was too good for this world; a person who probablynever would have been able to get himself heard. Because he was so goodand honest, nobody ever messed with him. After he lost his business andwasn’t able to go out with his suitcase selling things, the army draftedhim. It was fine. He got his money and it worked. We were happy tohave our peace and quiet. But now, Cynthia, today there aren’t as manygoodGermans as there were before. They are not “Deutschland über alles”[She laughs.] No, they want to go to foreign countries, and they like totravel. Germany has done well in the last thirty years, and maybe thingsaren’t going as well now. Because of this there are no more goodGermans. That’s what things are like today. People don’t just simplyremain in Germany and feel satisfied.

� � �

I got to know my husband during the war. We got married in 1945.We would have had our fiftieth wedding anniversary this year. He’sbeen dead for twelve years. We met in Krakow. He was an officer inthe Wehrmacht. He was very good-natured. He would have liked tohave helped me. He was on my side. But then he was sent out to theother side of the front to Banat where people fought recently nearRussia. I came back to Hamburg. Now he is dead. He was sixteen years

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older. That’s too much. He was good-spirited; he was funny. Laterwhen he was seventy and got sick and grouchy, then sixteen years wasa big difference. But we did love each other. Those older men getdifficult. He was very “rrr-rrr.” [She makes growling noise and laughsnervously.]

My husband wouldn’t let me work. Back then women didn’t work.“My wife doesn’t need that.” But when he got so old and sick, then Iworked, from age fifty-one to sixty-one. That way I got retirement. I onlyhad to work half days. At least I was out of the house for half the day.You could say that I had some peace and quiet in that half. It was nice.I had coworkers. I liked to work. I was in university administration atVon Melle Park in the education department for ten years. I retired in1981 or 1982. My husband didn’t want me to work, but I am happy Idid because now I receive a pension, more of a pension than I wouldhave gotten for not having worked for twenty-five years. I also workedwhen I was a young girl, so the years get counted together.

My husband and I had a fine relationship even though he was older.[Laughs.] I have one daughter. She was born in 1948. I already have suchan old daughter! [Laughs again.] I am surprised that she didn’t cometoday. She wanted to be here. My daughter is not so interested. Mygranddaughter, Nina, however, is. The young girls are. [Ilse showspictures.] That’s my daughter and her husband. And my grandchildren:Nina is eighteen and Nicolai is fifteen. Clever kids—both of them. Mydaughter is a teacher but she has taken two years’ leave. She had a stomachoperation and could not recover from it. One can take two years’ leavefrom their job here in Germany. Can you do that in America too? Sheis a state employee, so she can. Naturally that means that the income willbe smaller, but then the income gets smaller and smaller anyway. Whenthe children were born, she took a leave then too. [Chuckles.] InHamburg people who have money don’t talk about it. I don’t have anymoney and I don’t talk about that either! [Laughs.] It’s a differentcountry. It’s not so important in Germany—either you have it or youdon’t. I don’t have a good memory. I’m sure I missed some things. Butmaybe that’s because yesterday I was looking through my dead mother’sthings and I called my daughter on the telephone and told her that she

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should come and see them. She couldn’t come this morning. She was inthe hospital because something was wrong with her eyes. My daughterdoesn’t have much time for things like this perhaps. She said, “If I can,I will come.” Well, she didn’t come. [Laughs.] Nina ceaselessly asks mequestions.9 She wants to know about my mother and my grandmotherand I told her that you were coming. But she has a boyfriend and then,of course, she has no time for anything else. Such young girls. She wantsto know everything and I want to show her. Yesterday I looked formemorabilia and other objects, letters from my mother and such things,from the Nazi time and found them. Nina is interested in that. I’m notas interested as my granddaughter is. But you know, Cynthia, I am afraidwhen she gets involved in clubs and organizations that these right-wingradicals will come and give her a smack on the cheek. I’m afraid of that.We had to go through that, but you haven’t [referring to all youngpeople]. They may not be able to find out that she is part Jewish, and Ithink that if she would have to walk around with a yellow star then theright-wing radicals would find out. Sometimes groups just hang togetherand do not plan any mischief. I think sometimes you have to be reallycareful with groups of young men. Boys really are dumb and when theybeat each other up I think that’s pretty bad.

As far as the situation inGermany today, I think that the government’shalt on the immigration of foreigners is good. I think we are getting toomany foreigners in Germany. That is our [a common] opinion. If youfollow the news the Kurds are vandalizing the Turkish stores and busi-nesses—hair salons and so forth—and they are bringingmuch unrest, andnow the Turks want more police protection from us. On the other hand,the Hamburg police, like all the police in the Bundesrepublik, don’t havethat much money. We older people are therefore not protected. Only theother people are protected now. [Makes distinction between old peopleand the Turkish.] Now they’re trying to say there should be more policeprotection for the Turkish businesses. I don’t hate the Turks as such, butI find it is enough. That is my opinion. The Turkish situation is a majorissue. It’s not so bad with the other minorities in Germany, but they don’tcause such a fuss either. They don’t protest as much. They don’t riot. Theaccidents and violence that happen at night, where we old ladies get our

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purses taken from us or get pestered, happens almost solely by foreigners.It’s unfortunate. Germans do it too, but mainly foreigners. It’s not that Idon’t see any of the foreigners ever being part of Germany or really everbeing able to be called “German.” Of course I do. There are also thechildren who are born here. There are so many nice young Turkish peoplewho are German—more German than Turkish. They are charmingpeople, clever and intelligent, and theydo theirwork. I don’t have anythingagainst them. I only have a problem with the fact that so much happens—places get broken into and burglarized and people are killed and often it ispredominately foreigners who are doing it. Naturally you get angry aftera while and you say to yourself that the foreigners should leave. It’s justthat our courts are burdened with it, our police are burdened with it, andour economic system is burdened with it. I think foreigners can get alongfine here. [Ilse ignores question about how she would describe “beingGerman.”] I think there are Turkish families who have older children, say,twenty years old, who have attended school here and they feel German.My hairdresser is a Turkish woman. She says, “I am more German thanTurkish. I visit Turkey, but I am German.” Basically I think there is nomajor difference between theGermans and foreigners, only when it comesto the church. For example, with marriage and the young Turkish girls.That is hard. I believe there are many tears. Otherwise there is nodifference. I see it inmy granddaughter’s class—there are foreign girls wholearn the same, wear the same clothes, and talk the same way. There is nodifference. It is only when the fathers are Turkish and they want to stay inGermany. Then they demand that their daughters do not marry Germanmen, and that is a problem. It depends on the fathers. Solely! Themothersare forbearing. It’s the fathers who dictate everything, and I think that isvery hard for the girls. They have to decide. Whether it’s a “mixedmarriage” or not, they all can marry, can’t they?

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Of course I sawmyself as an outsider. Oh, yes! That goes without saying.Not anymore, but back then, yes. These outsiders had a certain fear. For

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example, I had a friend for many years and we would get together—shecame over to my place and I went to hers. When her son was drafted intothe war and she found out that I was half Jewish, then the relationshipwas nasty. Then her son was killed and naturally it was the Nazis’ faultand then things were good between us again. But, yes, of course, youwere an outsider then. I can’t say that I felt just like the others, but athome it was always “say nothing, don’t attract attention, don’t doanything.” Our parents were scared.We were scared. I can’t believe therewere many women who said that they were not outsiders, but to still feelthat way? I don’t anymore. Directly after the war I had known it wascoming to an end. I have to say in all honesty that since I have lived inthis apartment I have had friends—the children got the house when theirfather died twelve years ago—and none of them knows that I am halfJewish. No one has asked and I have not said anything. So somehow youstill feel like an outsider. Nothing is ever mentioned of it. No one everasks. Who do I need to tell? Our mother was so tense about it when shedied in 1983. She said, “Don’t tell anyone that I was Jewish.” No oneneeds to know that. She lived in a big apartment building on the Alsterand no one knew that she was Jewish. I never told anyone. Why shouldI? But in fact, when my daughter was in school, she had an altercationwith a friend’s mother. My daughter had probably been ill mannered,and her friend’s mother had given the cheeky response “typical Jewishmanner.” It was like that long after the war. Then my daughter camehome really upset and said to me, “Mrs. So-and-so said that I told Doris[referring to Ilse’s daughter’s friend] off.” My daughter is also verytemperamental. “Typical Jewish manner.” You see? And that’s what wehad to deal with. But my mother always said, “Don’t say anything or doanything.” I consoled my daughter. I said, “Let her say it.” The old cow.What should I say? She has to get over it.

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We heard about resistance but didn’t think about it ourselves. We heardwhat was in the papers, after the war, not during, not through leaflets or

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propaganda newspapers [Flugblätter].Heavens, no!My father would nothave allowed that! Impossible! Then people practically had their blinderson. No one wanted to hear or see anything—they just closed their doorand ignored it. We saw demonstrations against the Nazis—for example,the Swing-Jugend,10 the people who danced. They were also in danger.The Nazis were very strict with those who swing-danced.

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I don’t know why this Jewish thing stands out, why this particular timein history stands out. People are raped and murdered in other lands andin other wars. But historians and journalists are so interested in thisparticular time. [We discuss the specific systematic murdering thatoccurred.] I don’t know. I can’t give you an answer. No, you don’t knoweither, naturally. You never lived it. I think that Germany couldovercome these judgments, and its stigma, but then it always comes upagain. Always. There’s hardly any peace and then the newspaper comesand writes some article and then the conversation starts all over again.Earlier there was no radio, no telephone, no TV. These communicationsdid not exist. One could not write as much about the atrocities duringthe Thirty-Years’ War or the Seven-Years’ War. They could report aboutit, but there were no electronic apparatuses then like we have now.Everything [referring to the information about the war] was lost. Todayreporters actually participate in wars, and they photograph it and writeabout it and have interviews like you’re doing now—there wasn’t any ofthat in earlier times. Because of technology, the issue is always stirred upagain. The young people like you who want to write about it start it upagain as well. [Long pause.]

It would have been great if the United States had intervened earlier,bombed the concentration camps. But then they would have killed a lotof people doing it, and therefore they didn’t. My aunt who died aboutten years ago had a Jewish family just like my mother did and she helpeda family that ended up in a concentration camp—Auschwitz, I think.The parents and everybody were killed, but a girl survived. She was bald

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and hungry. I saw the girl when she came back from Auschwitz. Afterthe war in 1950 I was thirty. She was about my age. But she survived.She came to my aunt and what I knew about her I found out throughmy aunt. I had no relationship with this young person. I was not afraidof her, but it was a terrible picture when she returned from theconcentration camp. It left me no peace day and night. My husbandscolded me for having looked at her because I was so upset. That’s not abig deal. One can look. It was worse for the girl, who had been throughit. We gave her clothes from Hildesheim. There was nothing. We didn’thave money, there was nothing to buy, but we made it. I still don’tremember her name. She would be an old lady now too. She said thatshe had always hoped that someone would save them. But like you said,if they had bombed the concentration camps everyone would have beenkilled. I don’t know what would have been a worse death, being gassedor being bombed. Everything was terrible. Bombs and gas cannot beequated. I mean, if they had bombed, then they would have killedeverything, even their Jewish—our Jewish people. Anyway, she wentalone to America and we never heard anything else about her.

Many people who were in the Nazi party stayed in the governmenteven after theNazis fell out of power—everyone knows that, for example,Adenauer’s administration were in the Nazi party. It’s typical to believethat the same attitudes that people had duringWorldWar II still remainin Germany. The people still carry these attitudes with them and haven’tgiven them up yet. I always have this fear that with some people thefeeling is still there.

One of my friends has said, “I don’t know why everybody was soupset over Hitler.” She hasn’t said it directly to me, but she has to others.I don’t hear this much anymore. She has stopped. But there are still a lotof people who talk like that. If I saw anything like this happening on thestreet, I believe I would say something. If there were a lot of peoplearound I probably wouldn’t say anything. My fear is that I need to becareful not to ignore things because then it starts all over again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

GRETEL LORENZEN

“God took my life into his hands and I’mforever grateful for that”

�

Gretel wrote to me on March 8, 1995: “I have read yourarticle in the Hamburger Abendblatt [daily paper] and am readyto talk about my ‘mixed marriage.’ The precondition is—justas you wrote—a confidential and anonymous conversation.[Later she consented to use her name.] Today I am eighty-seven years old, live in a place for seniors, am a Hamburger,and left because of the bombing of Hamburg in July, 1943.After about ten years, the possibility arose to come back. I willwait for your call or written answer.” Gretel signed with hermarried name and then with her birth name, Steinfeld. Twoweeks later I arrived at the retirement community. I knew thatGretel was somewhat reluctant to talk and that she had been

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encouraged to do so by her daughter, Sigrid. I reported inwiththe receptionist and was given permission to go up to Gretel’sapartment.

When Gretel opened the door, I had expected an older-looking face, but Gretel looked and moved like a muchyounger woman. She stood tall and erect, was attractive andthin, andwore a light-colored dress with a string of pearls. Shehadwhite, thick hair and a long, straight nose.Her eyes dartedeverywhere and were pronounced by dark circles and a fan oflines that moved out toward her ears. She had eight prominentdeep lines in her forehead and two brown age spots on hercheek. Immediately she told me to sit down and that she didnot havemuch time. In contrast to the typical German custom,she never offered me a drink or any food. I looked for a placeto plug in my tape recorder in her nondescript apartment. Shetold me she preferred that I not use it. I spent at least thirtyminutes trying to convince her that taping her was necessary,and that she would forget it was there. Begrudgingly, andwithassurances extricated fromme for anonymity, she agreed. I saton a low couch with a large window behind me that faced thestreet. Gretel’s living spacewas cramped, so I understood laterwhy she always wanted to roam about the city.

Throughout the interview, Gretel answered questionstersely and quickly. Clearly, she wanted to put as little of herlife as possible on display and move on with her day. Shepaused often when her memory failed her, and when she didnot want to deal with a question, she reverted to religiousplatitudes. Gretel often said, “Excuse me. I must jog mymemory,” and “You’re asking too much.” Unlike most of thewomen, she did not mention that she had pondered over orstudied the Third Reich; she held a detached stance. Twice—when she discussed her relationship to her aunt Frieda and toher daughter—she choked up but never cried. Her repressedanger surfaced frequently; often she raised her voice and beather fists on the table in front of her. Her eyes were portentous

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and watchful but became bright and excited when she showedme a picture of her father and daughter. No books related tothe period she lived through were evident in her apartment.

Gretel ended the interview abruptly. She was noticeablytired, and the conversation had been a trial for her. It wasraining as I headed for the train station. I turned to look at theretirement community behind me and saw Gretel at the busstop, umbrella in hand and rain hat on her head, and I watchedher until she ascended the steps into her bus. I marveled athow swiftly she had gotten herself together and left thebuilding. After I interviewed her daughter, Sigrid, I decidedthat it was the daughter who had been most affected by hermother’s past and tight-lipped silence and that she was morethanwilling to speak for them both. The story begins first withGretel and then follows with Sigrid.

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I was born in Hamburg in Eppendorf on Eppendorfer Landstraße. Imyself was born within a “mixed marriage” and my daughter, naturally,also. And in the so-called Third Reich there were first- and second-degree“mixed breeds.” I was first degree. My parents were divorced and notbecause of the “mixed marriage,” but because my father liked otherwomen. He was unfaithful. At the insistence of my mother, the verdictwas guilty. I married in 1931. At that time it was fine. Two years laterthis marriage would have been impossible. I was “mixed” and myhusband was classified “pure Aryan.” I had mentioned to him before wemarried that my father was Jewish and he said, No problem. We had abusiness. To have customers in your store, you needed to be a partymember. We depended on the business to live so my husband joined theparty. We saw the news headlines in the paper and one can’t describe it.[She beats on the table.]We always were fearful something else was goingto turn bad. Words can’t describe it. I had a very good husband. Sincechildhood, he had a weak stomach.He had an operation and didn’t come

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through. Harsh pressure was placed on him and it struck at the weakestorgan. He died during the Third Reich. He wasn’t able to cope with thefull extent of events.

My daughter started school. When I went to pick up my child atthe train station, I thought, How long will you have the child beforethey take her away? We were always under pressure. How could theentire German people follow this man, Hitler? It was so. They had atleast left my child with me. We faced the music. My husband went tothe local group to inquire if our “mixed marriage” was allowed. Wedidn’t get an answer. Maybe they couldn’t send an answer because inMunich there was a bombing. We still had customers. One of mybrothers-in-law, one of two brothers, was completely National Socialistand made rude comments. I can tell you how awful this was—hewouldn’t see me and he supported the Nazi government. He celebratedhis golden wedding anniversary and didn’t officially invite us but didso offhand. We went but didn’t really want to. When we arrived I said,“Thanks for inviting me, but go ahead and party.” We didn’t go in.He had shown all his cards. For that he must answer before the livingGod. What should I talk about?

We never felt safe. Not at all. I had entirely lovable in-laws. Theysaid it didn’t interest themwhether I was “half Aryan.” They always stoodby me. We were bombed out and traveled to my in-laws. My father-in-law was a Studienrat, simply called a Lehrer [teacher] today. He had beensent with his class to the largest island Fehmarn on the Baltic Sea. Myin-laws told me later that on the island I had looked at the end of mynerves, under pressure. They sensed my loss as a widow and knew oneof their sons looked upon me as dirt. I knew what plans Hitler had. Iknew a family—the father was Jewish and the mother not. The exactsituation as mine. This man had to work as a street sweeper. Otherwisenothing else happened to him. I know many such incidents. This is justone. But living with uncertainty and fear, what happens then?What willthey do with me and my child?

Most of my acquaintances did not know I was half Jewish, and Ikept my mouth shut. Other people didn’t know the whole business.Jewishness played no role for me. None at all. My father wasn’t a

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practicing Jew, and I didn’t knowmy grandparents. As far as I know theyweren’t observant. They were just Jews. I had no Jewish friends and myparents divorced. My father was in a concentration camp. I found a listof people who had been gassed and burned and those who returned. AndI saw he’d come back. I met him. He was very friendly and happy thatI came to him and that I considered it valuable to spend time with him.Every four weeks I visited him, after my husband was dead.

My father’s second wife was Jewish. He wasn’t always faithful to hereither. He was just that way. I’m also of the opinion, whether one isJewish or not, that if someone has an obsession or passion, it’s impossibleto free oneself from it. Only Jesus who says “whom I make free is reallyfree” can unbind someone. That’s right. And so I visited my father everyfour weeks. One time I couldn’t get away and he called me. He said Ishould come. I said no, I can’t come. I have too much to do. He pushedme, and I went to his place and told him everything I thought abouthim. I made an effort to enforce morality. I said, “I couldn’t say all thatto you if you’d been a father to us. You never took care of us. Motherhad to fend for herself. You needed your money for other women.” Headmitted it was all true, and I could say whatever I pleased. Afterward, Iwent every four weeks, and as far as I could tell, he was happy. I have apicture here of him. He lived together with another Jewish woman, butthey didn’t marry. [She unwraps layers of brown paper to reveal aphotograph of her father.] Here’s a picture of him and his live-ingirlfriend. And here is a picture of Sigrid when she was young.

My father had a brother, Albert, who died of stomach cancer, anatural death. He had an unmarried sister, Aunt Frieda. She lived withAlbert. I could visit her whenever I pleased as if I was one of herchildren. We took walks together and Freida told great fairy tales. Shealso was in a concentration camp where she starved to death, so myfather reported. My father said, “Whatever happened here to us, forher you can be sure it was much worse.” My father was in Theresien-stadt—not an extermination camp. Every evening someone came andpointed out someone—this person, that person—and they’d be sentaway and gassed. The women of two couples were called forth and hadto say good-bye for good. And where did they go? I believe Auschwitz

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wasn’t far—at any rate, an extermination camp wasn’t far. And whatdid my father have to do? In Theresienstadt execution was done byshooting in the back of the head and the victim would fall into a grave.My father had to shovel gravel into a grave. He had to shovel gravelover them.1 He managed to survive because the Russians came. Theyhad seen many sights that no one should ever see—the ovens, theskeletons. Russians discovered camps in the East, and later, the Englishfrom the other side. It’s over now. I heaved a sigh of relief, even thoughwe had lost the war. One can’t describe this feeling of relief. [She speaksvery painfully.] The two brothers of my father’s [second] wife were inBerlin and people had said, “Get out of here!” They said, “We’ve beenhere for generations. Nothing will happen to us.” Both were gassed.They were great men. That’s the way it was.

It was difficult to hide. Often the Nazis checked in official files tolook up those who didn’t register. They went so far as to take the filesfrom the government offices. Often they checked birth records even ifno one filled out a form. When you voted in a plebiscite you had toindicate race. My husband could write “Aryan” and I, nothing. Weturned it in. Nothing came of it. I didn’t dare write “Aryan” because tobe caught in a lie would have been even worse.

I was still very young when my parents divorced. Had my fatherbeen faithful, my mother would have gone through thick and thin forhim. He was always with other women and never cared for us. Headmitted it all after he returned from Theresienstadt. A few years ago itstated in the newspaper that whoever suffered in the Nazi time shouldwrite to the paper in order to receive money. No amount of money cancompensate the suffering. My daughter went in and I received DM2,000. My marriage went bad for a different reason. Ah so! My husbandwas in the party with most of his activity in the Red Cross. As a partymember, he couldn’t remain because of me. If the “Führer” [saidsarcastically] didn’t have anything against it, my husband could stay inthe Red Cross. If he had been allowed to remain in the party then theRed Cross would have allowed him to stay.We requested clemency from“the Führer.” I was very happy that my husband didn’t receive theanswer. The request was denied, but he remained in the “work front”

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and I did also. I could show that I had no objection to the NationalSocialist party. It was fortunate that before his death, he didn’t receivethe answer. That would have been a blow to him.

I couldn’t be for Hitler. The Rechtspartei [right-wing party]should, when it sees such developments, eliminate them early. I’meighty-seven and God will soon call me into eternity. One has to lookat that very seriously. Aunt Freida, I believe, was Communist. She wasa good person. Father was more toward the right wing, before the so-called Third Reich. He was bürgerlich [middle class] one could say. Atthe time, politics concerned only men, but today because of TV, evenwithout wanting to, people are involved in politics. Before, politics wasdiscussed only among and around men, and less among women. Myfather, most of the time, had a job; he traveled from place to place.Usually he came home for Christmas. At the time, it was customaryfor the man to wear a wedding band and my mom would look at hishand. He didn’t wear one.

One time my father had a position in Stettin—today it’s in Poland,it doesn’t belong to us anymore. He wanted to take his wife and daughteralong, and we went. It was a wonderful memory—both of my parentstogether. We woke up early Sunday mornings and just drank coffee andhiked in the woods. There were two restaurants in the forest. It was reallythe only time I had both parents. It didn’t last long. My father went toStuttgart; Mother wouldn’t go. She went to Hamburg. It cost muchmoney to leave—I don’t know how she made ends meet. My father hadsomeone else in Pommern [Stettin]. For my mother it was very hard. Itwas like throwing the glass into the mill. My mom believed in Jesus andput everything in his hands. One can’t describe this time—so muchpressure placed on an individual.

Frieda was picked up, locked up, and transported with other Jews.My husband was already dead and I had my child. I had a paintingbook at Frieda’s that she asked me to retrieve. I didn’t go, out of fear.My friend, who’s now dead, went in my place. Frieda was startled whenmy friend showed. She said, “Gretel didn’t come?” I’m sorry, but mykid was so important to me. [Gretel apologizes.] Then I received a letterfrom my father from Theresienstadt. I stood out in front of our place,

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and the mailman gave it to me. My husband didn’t see it. “We canreceive packages,” it said. I sent nothing back; I didn’t want to do that.[She was afraid of being tracked.] My father never asked if we receivedthe note; he probably thought Nazis had intercepted it. We had abusiness and my husband was a party member because of that. Abusinessmanwho didn’t join the party had no customers.We dependedon the drugstore to live. A Drogerie [drug store] doesn’t exist as suchanymore. [It’s called an Apotheke, pharmacy.] He wasn’t inclinedtoward party ideology but did it for business. He knew I was halfJewish. My husband had a friend who loaned him money to start thebusiness, and he paid off the loans.

I was baptized and married by a clergyman who converted fromJudaism to Christianity. In 1931 I married. We met in 1930. It was ashort engagement. As strange as it sounds, I met my husband on thestreets. I had a woman friend who was invited to a house for a large partywhen the parents were gone. They danced all night. I saw him the nextday with her and he looked like he’d been dancing all night. We metagain. I saw him come out of a store and he asked if he could walk withme. In 1939, at thirty-one, he died. It was hard. I couldn’t have gottena better man. I never married again. I knew that I had a good marriage,and I didn’t know what I’d receive a second time. I never would simplylive with someone as people do. Today I’m too old. Around 1955 myfather died. Both my father and Aunt Frieda had gone with me to theJewish cemetery in Hamburg. My father was buried there and the graveis marked with a stone. I was at my father’s funeral. It rained terribly.Someone sent a cross, not a wreath! The Jews don’t believe in theMessiah. They’re waiting for him.

My parents met each other in a home that offered lodging to youngJewish boys. My mother was working there. My father really liked herand carried coal for her. It was obvious they liked each other and gotengaged, which my mother was not permitted to do. It was clear hewasn’t Christian. My mom thought, When we get married, it will bedifferent. He didn’t go to Jewish meetings. It didn’t change, and he soonhad another woman. My mother was Christian but at one time had tochoose one way or another. Later I did the same.

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My mother was simple. She came from Mecklenberg, and hermarriage was not good. My father came from a Jewish family and wasbetter educated. Jews are clever and often have high-positioned jobs.Onetime, on a Sunday, everything was closed when my husband had thestomach flu. We went walking and stopped at the only office that wasopen. A Jewish doctor fixed him up. My husband said, “How much doI owe you?” “Nothing,” he said. “I helped you and that’s enough.”

I don’t know what role my parents played for me when my fatherwasn’t always around. I can’t pinpoint their roles. Before the divorce, mymother sent my father and me shopping one summer. We went to buyfruit at an upscale store where you had to wait in line. Someone else waswaited on before us and didn’t care. I stepped up and said, “But no, it’smy turn. I should be next.” My father pulled me away and said, “Howcould you do that? Go apologize to the woman.” The woman lived inour building. I knew very clearly that my father kommt von selbst—hedealt directly with things and life goes on. My mother sometimes wentweeks without saying anything to me when I was up to no good. Thatwas terrible. I had to apologize and then I’d wonder why I did.

I didn’t spend much time with my father. He was never there. Hefought in World War I, was slightly wounded, and convalesced in thehospital in Hamburg. When he got better he stayed with us. While hewas there I didn’t have a mother anymore! He provided for me. Oncehe gave me some cake and a friend tried to take it away. I said, “You!Look. That’s my father. That’s my father’s cake. You can’t take it away.”This is a childhood memory.

After my father came out of the concentration camp, he was happyI visited. He didn’t deny anything when I confronted him. I visitedevery four weeks. He was in Rahlstadt. He moved into his ownapartment—he got his former one back. Between the divorce andtransport to the camp, I don’t believe I saw him much. He changedjobs here and there. He lived in different cities. Before Hitler’s time,he was self-employed. When my parents divorced he had to take careof me financially. Every Friday I went to get money from him. It wasawful. As far as I remember, I rarely saw him and never got anythingfrom him, and he rented out a room to a family where he worked. The

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wife was sneaking around with my father. Her husband actually cameto our house and told my mother that his wife had been sleeping withsomeone she knew. My mother said, “Yes, I know him, but I can’t doanything.” After his camp release, my father and I spent time talkingwhen I made my visits.

My mother and I had a four-room apartment in Eppendorferchausee. She had to take care of herself and rent out rooms. There wasa time when it was slow to rent a room. Other times it rented quickly. Iwas engaged at that time and wanted tomarry.Whatever money I earnedI left with my mother. It was unusual. She had to pay the rent that wasdue. I always gave her money. If I had not helped financially, then wewould have had to rent out my room.

My mother and father had no contact with each other. I pickedup the money. It was arranged that she rented rooms and would dotailoring. She couldn’t keep appointments. She could sew well, but shecouldn’t meet deadlines. The relationship to my father wasn’t specialjust because I was his first child. He lived mainly in Berlin, and whenin Hamburg he stayed with Frieda and Albert. Frieda came to us onceand told me he was there. I’d show up and he’d say, “Oh. It’s my child.”I always went to him. On my birthday, he sent greetings andpackages—materials for sewing when he was a display window deco-rator. Very nice. I always looked stylish. But good looks don’t replaceeverything, no? My mother had a husband who wasn’t faithful anddidn’t take care of her, but she never prevented me from visiting him.I wondered about that.

I attended the Volksschule [elementary school] because Uncle Alberthad a good job and paid for it, and my father had an illegitimate childfor whom he had to pay. I was there three years and continued furtherto a Mittelreife [middle-school degree]. I trained in business—confec-tionery and coffee sales. I was raised as an only child; I never saw my halfsibling. I’d have liked to have had several children myself but it didn’tturn out that way. But when I look back even if I’d had two childrenGodwould have looked out forme, althoughwithout a husband it wouldhave been tough.

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Around 1950, when I lost the business and was unemployed, I cameback to Hamburg. Previously I was in Pomerania and Stuttgart. I tooka job I hated—I was sitting on a powder keg and could be fired at anyminute. I learned sales. I said, “Jesus, I put this in your hands. I can’t doit anymore.” I had to return to Fehmarn. By now it was the 1960’s. Amessenger came to me and said, “I guess you don’t like to work here.”“No, I don’t,” I said. “There’s a job in the newspaper for an accountsmanager at Edeka.” “Yes, bookkeeper. I can do that,” I said. So I appliedand one day received a phone call. An apprentice said, “You’re requestedto come to the phone.” I said, “Can you bring the phone to me?” I wasirritated because I figured it was another worker. With that tone of voiceI answered the phone. “Hello, this is Herr Kruger.” I thought it wasKruger, an apprentice from the company, and so I didn’t sound toothrilled. He said, “No. Dr. Kruger from Edeka.” He had received myapplication but had just sent a letter to me saying he would not hire me.But on the phone he said, “There might still be a possibility. Or haveyou found something?” “No,” I said. “Then come over and speak to us.”I said, “I can come this afternoon.” I talked withDr. Kruger. Theymeantto hire someone else and hadn’t heard back from him so they asked if Iwanted the job. I was employed there for over ten years and I never hadbeen so satisfied as I was with Edeka. At sixty-five you are forced to retireregardless of circumstances. So I unfortunately had to give it up. I got asmall pension that I have to give to the retirement home. I receive pocketmoney one time per year. I get DM 600-650 Sonderrente [pensionbonus]. God tookmy life into his hands and I’m forever grateful for that.

I see myself as a Christian in the New Testament sense. I believe inJesus Christ and that He, for me, went to the cross. I bear part of theburden of guilt. Jews are still God’s people, and on the Second Coming,God will appear on the mountain again where the Ascension took place.One doesn’t know where Golgotha is, but now people might know. Idon’t remember the date I became Christian, but once when I wastraveling I was afraid of dying and death. I said to Jesus, “I want to beyours,” and expressed thanks that He died at Golgotha. At that time, thisfear of death disappeared completely. When I meet new people who are

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trulyChristian, I’m not restrained in talking with them. Just because theywere baptized or married in the church doesn’t mean they’re Christian.I am cautious because there are people alive today who still think alongthe lines of National Socialism. The Jews are all God’s creation, butmaybe they are no longer God’s children. The child was to be born andthe rabbi goes up to heaven and Jesus says, “One must be born anew.”You must lay aside your previous life completely and believe in Jesus.Then you’re born anew.Then there’s a growth process. I have seen peoplewho were chronically angry become calm and mild-mannered. I knowthat the Jews are God’s people, even today. I know it. And what doesthat mean? I know that God is infinitely faithful but also severe. Yet hekeeps his promises to the Jewish people. In the Old Testament one canread how the Jews were led out of Israel and were in the desert for fortyyears. In theOldTestament the Jews often had been disobedient,makingidols. God said, “I’ll scatter them among the peoples.” I ask you, is thatso?Have the Jews been scattered all over? I ask you, is that so? If it weren’tthat way, there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust. They didn’t have theirown country—everybody had Jews in their population. They didn’t havea state until Herzog came up with the idea of Palestine. I’ve read GoldaMeir and she was one of the first pioneers of the State of Israel in the1940s. Shewas sent toAmerica to raisemoney for Israel. She gave lecturesand raised lots of money, which was used to build Israel. She is buriedin Israel. I was in Israel twenty years ago. I traveled by ship and then twoweeks by bus through Israel to holy sites—it’s not that big. I saw theKlagemauer [WailingWall]. I heard the wailing and was startled. I wouldlike to go back but it’s not possible anymore.

During the Nazi time, I felt like an outsider. Whoever would havefound out about me would have seen me as someone not to look at. Butnot to true Christians. To them it didn’t matter. I remember no radio,no cinema. I remember at one time I was anemic and I had to get to thedoctor. I needed to fill out forms for treatments that had blocks for“Aryan” and “non-Aryan.” I didn’t even get past the form. [She slaps herleg.] Being an outsider is awful, when someone knows he belongs to acertain people andwhen these people don’t want to know anything abouthim. I was born into the German people but they didn’t want to know

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me. It’s hard to describe. It’s normal to love your country and its peoplewhen it’s your home. One time someone said, “You should have left.”To leave Germany with a small child was impossible. I have neverthought about leaving Germany. Where should I go? I never thoughtabout it. After 1945 I had no reason to leave. I may have gone earlier ifI had gotten some help. Certainly I have a bind to Germany. I don’t takenotice of it. When one is German one loves her country and stands upfor it. That’s always the case. When someone says something untrue ordisagrees, you retort with something positive about your country. TheGerman people are what changed. First, we had large unemployment.Hitler built the highways to take care of this. The government was unableto build up a trust with the people, so they created a PR scam. What wasto come later, no one foresaw. A lot of people supported it. I don’t knowhow it came to persecution. One lets the mask fall from the face. Theold fieldmarshal, Hindenburg,madeHitler the ruler and he didn’t knowthe future. Many people thought as Hitler said—the Jews are ourmisfortune. Perhaps it was German nature. Now if you asked people ifthey’d like to go back to Nazi times they’d say no.

Maybe if Americans had arrived sooner it would have made adifference. But from what I heard, other countries didn’t know what wasgoing on. They couldn’t do anything but what they did—attack andconquer Germany. I never listened to the BBC. And if I had? I need toleave now.

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CHAPTER E IGHT

SIGRID LORENZEN

“The Hitler ideology wasstronger than my life”

�

Around the same time that I received Gretel’s letter, I alsogot one from her energetic daughter, Sigrid, who said she hadread the article about my research and had sent it on to hermother. After the short and painfully intense interview withher mother, Sigrid wrote to me with a question and a favor.She wanted permission to make a copy of her mother’sinterview and asked if I would do it; otherwise, she wouldmake a copy if I brought her the taped interview. I wanted tomeet with Sigrid, not only because of her amusing, forthrightcharacter but because she was so engrossed in the repercus-sions of her mother’s past. I surmised that Sigrid could revealmore information than her mother had.

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Bothmother anddaughter, althoughcontinually in conflict,embraced their own religion to cope: Sigrid, progressive Chris-tianity informed by Judaism, and Gretel, traditional Christian-ity. Both, although they professed Christian beliefs, hid fromeach other behind their respective discourses. Sigrid claims thatmy coming to Hamburg and talking with them brought themcloser together; they have been discussing their painful, butshared, memories. Sigrid’s father, an “Aryan” and nationalist,died when she was young. Out of anxiety and fear of exposure,Gretel, aMischling, damaged the relationship with her daughterby overprotecting Sigrid as a child and then restricting herfreedomthrough ironclad rules as anadult. Itwasapparent fromthese separate interviews that both women were divergently,intensely emotional: Sigrid displayed ebullient happiness withherself, frustration with her mother, and peace with Germany’spast;Gretel displayed agitationwith herself, pride in her daugh-ter, andconfusionaboutGermany’s past—hervoice chokedandtears came to her eyes at points where she had to recall aparticularly painful memory. She was not comfortable withcrying. I realized after I left that Gretel avoided telling mecertain stories so as not to lose her composure. Although Sigridclaims to be “more enlightened” and without crutches as com-pared to her mother, I found them both clinging to religion indistinct ways. Sigrid claimed her mother had no real under-standing of Jews. Gretel is dogmatically Christian; perhaps thisstance has been a shield against Germany’s past—she has nothad to confirm the persecution and the abandonment sheactually endured. She merely says that with faith she can lookat the past. Sigrid, on the other hand, is what I would call a“born-again” Jew. She is pro-Israel and very steeped in Chris-tian and Judaic doctrines, especially at points where theycommingle. Sigrid offered an evaluation of hermother’s person-ality and life; through this, we learn about Sigrid herself.

I talked with Sigrid in April at her home near Blankenesee,a beautiful part of Hamburg. Sigrid wore a short-sleeved

Sigrid Lorenzen 245

sweater, a long, clanking necklace, a multicolored scarf tied tohang in front, a silver watch, white hose, and a green silk skirtwith green and black canvas shoes to match. Her gargantuan,silver-rimmed glasses complemented her oval, angular face andshocking silver hair. In her spacious apartment stood a large,wrought-iron menorah with white candles, eerily true-to-lifeporcupine figurines on the windowsill, and The Jewish New

Testament andRussianmatrioshkas (woodendolls stacked insideeach other) in clear view wherever one sat in the room. When IaskedSigrid if herporcupines symbolized something, she repliedthat she had received them as a present: “I don’t knowwhy theywere given to me—if my personality resembles a porcupine!”She told me immediately that her mother felt like a huntedanimal, andher conversation centered aroundbefriendingJews.

Because of Sigrid’s interest in Jews and survivors, wediscussed the problem with wannabes. I had read a story setin Poland about a man who was too young to have survivedthe camps but said that he had. He would not have even beenborn yet. Because he wanted to be a part of history, hepretended to be a victim. Certainly there are some people whosurvived the war and then claimed falsely that they were in thecamps. Why? Undoubtedly they had experienced other hor-rors. Because they wanted to make a bigger impression, tocreate an image, they said they survived the camps so thatpeople could understand their behavior. Sigrid replied thattheir behavior was “masochistic.” This is a difficult psycholog-ical problem. Everyone maintains the survivor/victim dichot-omy that Sigrid said “doesn’t work.”

We talked about the appearance of Jesus. I told her abouttheEaster servicewhere I heard a beautiful a cappellaGermanchant that resonates in my head. I think the German languageis most powerful, most spiritually stirring, in music. If I everfelt the presence of God or Jesus, it was in that dark churchin Klosterstern. It is ironic how Wagner was played in theconcentration camps and how the Nazis wanted classical

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music surrounding them. This music, this essence of whatGermany was, became a perversion. Where was God in theThirdReich?Somany lost their faith. I hadheard stories aboutthe appearances of Jesus in World War II, various accountsof seeing Jesus in bomb shelters and a stranger who appearedand told a soldier where to go in order to be safe. Sigrid saidshe had heard of people who have experienced a Christus

Erscheinung, who believe they have seen Jesus.Sigrid played some American gospel music. She smiled

and clapped. She was overly-exuberant, religious, spiritual,and generous. Her joy was infectious, but why did I not trustit? Perhaps it was her insistence on “protecting” Jews? Thereare differences among Jews as well; not all are “holy” people,yet, if there is a Jew in her midst, she swarms. Perhaps this isher reaction to the hatred that poured forth from Germany.

After both Lorenzen interviews were complete, I receivedanother letter fromSigridwith an analysis of the interviews. Sheheads her commentary of her mother’s interview with “Supple-ment.” She comments that Fehmarnused to be the largest islandin the BRD (German Federal Republic) but now Ruegen is.Her mother had spoken incorrectly. Sigrid thought her motherhad mixed up the time sequences, especially concerning whathappened before and after Theresienstadt (a work camp),where hermother’s father, withwhom she had little connection,was imprisoned. Sigrid says, “One can gather what my mothermeans.”Also, she claims,what hermother says aboutDM2,000is incorrect—the true story can be garnered from copies sheenclosed that concern theWiedergutmachung (reparations). Herdemand for compensation was rejected, but she was given DM2,000 unofficially. The following is the letter Sigrid wrote to theAmt für Wiedergutmachung [Office for reparation]:

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

I received your answer from the director, Mr. Draeger, of the

Reichsarbeitung. The VDK was the first place I sought help

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because I didn’t know to whom I should turn. It concerns the

following: Because of differing family circumstances, my

mother and I once again came to discuss the past; more

concretely, my mother’s past. She is a “half-breed of the first

degree” as she was called in the Third Reich, and as such, she

is still cloaked with fear, at times, intense, and feelings of

worthlessness. The wounds refuse to heal. My parents’

marriage bowed under massive tensions because my father

was, as a young man, unable to withstand the pressure and

wanted a divorce. It was requested of him to give up his

present duties with the Red Cross, or to separate himself from

his wife and child. There was an exchange of letters between

my father and the Reichsleiter, Bormann, head of the NSDAP

[the Nazi party] chancellery, who denied the request. I have

the letter. My father died in November 1939. Concerning

the question of my mother, whether she has at any time or

anywhere received a small bit of compensation, she said no.

I am pointing this out to you one more time in order to come

to a resolution in this matter. My mother was born in 1907

and now has moved to a senior citizens home. She became a

“social case” because her pension consists only of DM 1,000

monthly. She is not a war widow, and for reasons entirely

psychological, she missed out on the recovery that followed

the war. I know that the contents of the letters are late but

not entirely too late, in order to somehow receive reparations.

However, I am glad I have written this to you in the interest

of my mother. I thank you for the effort of your response,

and send friendly greetings.

Sigrid Lorenzen

She comments that her mother has no relationship withJudaism and that perhaps she is afraid of being linked to theappellation as well as the religious practice. Her mother hasnot been able to grasp what a great, positive significanceJudaism has had perhaps because she still believes that her

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father, Sigrid’s grandfather, was not morally correct. Shehasn’t accepted or come to terms with it, has repressed thememories, and left his conduct to God. Sigrid believes hermother does not have freedom within herself, and feels sorryfor her mother in this lack of freedom. Sigrid says that incontrast to her mother, she contacts Jews wherever she canand she likes doing it: “I am always happy when I see themand if the situation allows it, I tell them I amhappy to see them.But I am twenty-seven years younger, and live in a differenttime from that of my mother.”

In another written summary of the interviews, Sigridwrites: “I think my mother has an inferiority complex becauseof her childhood [divorced parents] and because of her non-Aryan race. I myself have always been spontaneous andconfident, at least on the outside, and that hasmademymotheruncomfortable.” Now Sigrid is trying to bridge the gulf on asentimental and psychological level—interior links—betweenherself and her mother: “I am trying to love her at her age, andaccept and love her in her ‘brokenness.’”

Sigrid is a follower of Israel. The books in her homereflect her interest in Jewish and Israeli issues. She doeseverything to display her solidarity. While in Stuttgart, shewore a large Star of David on a silver chain. Arabs stared ather. She got a reaction, as she wanted, and “sparks flew.” Shementioned the king ofDenmarkwith the yellow star ofDavidand how it is too bad no one in Germany makes the sameovertures.1 Sigrid is glad to live in her homeland, Germany,to move about freely, because in Iran and other Arabcountries she could not have worn this chain, this sign ofIsrael which, she said, is three inches in diameter. Her friendsconduct similar displays with variations—they place pro-Israel stickers on their cars or bikes. Some of her friends takeevery opportunity among general society or at specific eventsto place reports of Messianic Jews (those Jews who believeChrist is the Savoir), and cultural symbols, such as wine or

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jewelry, onto a table in order to put Israel into the focus ofattention. Sigrid writes:

Among my friends, I feel completely accepted and bound

with them because God put a very strong love for the people

of Israel into the hearts of my closest friends. And they accept

the guilt of Germany for themselves. We give money to

Holocaust survivors, or, for example, we visit people in Israel

who have little money, and give them money for dentures.

Or in Hamburg, we try to get in touch with Jews who

emigrated from Russia and want to find a new home here.

This is a private initiative without government involvement.

� � �

I read your announcement in the Hamburger Abendblatt. I called mymother and she said, “Send it to me.” So I sent the clipping to mymother. I told her that she could do whatever she wanted but to keepin mind that she is one of few survivors. “You can still tell people aboutthis,” I said. I tried to make it seem important to her. She’s eighty-seven. My mother never psychically worked through the Nazi time.I’ve forgotten so much; it’s left behind in my childhood. I had to workout negativity.

I don’t know either Uncle Albert or Aunt Frieda, who my mothermentioned. I do know my grandfather came back from Theresienstadt.I was twenty-three or twenty-four when he brought up the subject, andI had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. My mother told methat my grandfather had been in Theresienstadt, but I didn’t know thatstory, that history. My mother had said during the war, “If we’re everseparated, then remain faithful to God.” I didn’t know what she meant.I figured out later that my mother was afraid we’d be torn apart, thatshe’d be arrested and stuck in a concentration camp. Ten years ago Iasked my mother to write down her life story, a form of therapy, to freeherself from the past. She did. I can’t read it sometimes without weeping.

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It is horrible. My mother wrote in her memoirs that she had a feeling ofhome [Heimat Empfindung] at Frieda’s where her family receivedwarmth. Something mymother’s father could or would not give, she gotfreely from her uncle’s family. My mother is incapable of bonding withpeople because of her parents’ broken marriage. My mother abandonedTante Frieda, although Frieda still accepted my mother.

My father was a Nazi. Did my mother say my father liked women?No. She gets a lot mixed up.Well, he was a handsome man, but it was mygrand father who ran around. He had a small conscience. He was adulter-ous already at the time my mother was young. He was always gone, neverhome. My father was really not a “hero to women,” the Casanova type.Not that I would know. But, he died so young, thirty-two years old.Certainly my mother told you that? She let out the entire report?

In his heart perhaps my father was not such a Nazi. He was in theRed Cross—this was a confirmation of and gave value to his life.Because of his “non-Aryan” marriage he was ordered to give up the RedCross service. I have an official letter here from Bormann who was aReichshauptstellenleiter, higher official, one of Hitler’s aides. My fatherhad made a plea for mercy, a call for clemency. The letter said, insummary, “As a result of your marriage to a ‘non-Aryan’ you are notallowed to serve in the Red Cross.”

Here is the letter: Reichskonzilei des Führers [The Führer’s Council]

Your request has arrived and is being processed. [Sigrid notes

they had crossed out sentences. She doesn’t knowwhy.Maybe

as it went from office to office.] Your request to be readmitted

into the Red Cross, despite your wife’s not completely Aryan

descent, has been subjected to close scrutiny and was carefully

looked into. According to our calculations we have deter-

mined that your wife is Mischling Ersten Grades, and due to

the substantial quantity of your wife’s impure blood, you

cannot be readmitted to the group. Acting as a subordinate

of Hitler, I reject this request. You may remain an einfaches

Mitgleid [a low-ranking member] of the party. We’re giving

Sigrid Lorenzen 251

you the opportunity to prove your desire to serve the

movement and its goals.

Reichsleiter, Martin Bormann.

[Note: Supposedly Bormann was more focused on reinvigo-

rating the nationalistic elements than persecuting the Jews.]

Oh, yeah! That is the Nazi Sprache [language]. At the time I was movinginto this apartment and my mother into the retirement community, Iasked my mother if she’d ever gotten compensation. I wonderedbecause so many other refugees, especially from the East (we had manyrefugees from the East), had received money. My mother was so wornout by the Nazi experience that she had little energy; she didn’t followthrough. She let it go to sleep. I’ll give you a copy. Keep asking mequestions.

Today is beautiful. It’s a joy to live, primarily because I am aconscientious Christian. God had something planned for the Jews. Hehad something planned for them at the time of the Third Reich and hestill does. I can agree with that. God didn’t abandon us; he didn’tabandon the Jews. Somehow life continues. A female friend commentedthat I had Jewish ancestry for which she envied me. I was employed as anurse in a hospital with a “half Jew” who had lost her wits and came intopossession of lots of money and bought a mosaic desk. That was the firstnice item she had owned. So I knew she shared my experiences, had beenthrough a similar past. It was a painful thought. It made me uncomfort-able. I was frightened of being laughed at, ridiculed, pushed off to theside. I thought about this for a while. I thought about the fears andanxieties my mother had passed on, the negative aspects. I felt intimi-dated and had a completely destroyed self-worth. My mother has adestroyed self-image. When one gets to know her more closely, goesdeeper, knows her reactions, it can be unbearable. My mother can’t say,“Ich bin ich” [I am who I am]. I am Gretel Lorenzin. My mother and Iare Christian. I’m not of Jewish faith. I do embrace the Old Testament,the Torah. That is the basis of my life. The God of Israel is the God of

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Christians—that is very clear to me. Their God is my God and my Godis theirs. Jesus was Christian and a Jew. The line goes back to OldTestament times.

I don’t feel like an outsider at all anymore. There was a long time ofsoul searching and ministry before I could accept my origins, to say “Ibelong here.” Yet I’m in a group that’s not accepted. I can only speakabout the Germans now. I’m often confronted with the question, “Ifthere’s a crisis in Israel today—and I believe there will be war in theforeseeable future—would the Christians come to Israel’s assistance? Iwouldmarch with them if there was a demonstration inHamburg. I havea large Israeli flag which I got in Jerusalem. I march on Jerusalem Dayonce each year. Yet it’s an important question that I must ask. I acceptharassment for myself. If people throw eggs and plums at me formarching for Israel, it’s the price one pays.

I receive a monthly magazine from Israel. A journalist, a messianicJew who immigrated to Israel, has done research and sees matters froma biblical view but sees other sides as well. Hemakes very clear howmanylies are published by the Palestinian and Arab press. It has been proventhat the money earned from sales of Arab oil has been used to controlthe media so that Palestinian and Arab opinions are pronounced andpushed, a “worldwide push”: anti-Israel. In essence, the world media ispaid off by Arabs to present a specific view.

I was in Englandmore than twenty years ago—in a school where ninedifferent countrieswere represented. I hadEnglish in school. If only I couldfind someone with whom I could speak. When I was in Israel, I also tookHebrew. I was in Israel in 1993 and I heard from someone about olderpeople who had emigrated from Germany who had the urge to speakGerman, to read German, to hear Goethe and Schiller. It was true. I canhardly imagine it. All the good German writers are gone. [But there’s Bölland Grass.] These Israelis have their roots in Germany and want to hearabout the culture in which they were raised. There’s an organization inHanover to which I wrote a few months ago to mention that I’d like totravel to Israel and visit the people in homes. I haven’t received an answer.

I worked out my problems with another person, a Teilfach Frau,who has training. She’s not a therapist. I could ask her questions. But she

Sigrid Lorenzen 253

knewmy family too intimately. In the matters of caring for the soul therewere two considerations: Where did my anxieties come from? Answer: Ireceived my anxieties from my mother’s breast, from home. And wheredid my mother get the anxieties? It all became clear. My mother wassurrounded by this ongoing deadly power, this ostracizing, this tellingsomeone “you’re worth nothing—we’d prefer you get out of here.” Itwas an ordeal for a young woman. It started from the time I was bornand trickled into my parents’ marriage. When my father decided hewanted to belong to the Red Cross and the party, he sacrificed his wife.That’s hard. The Hitler ideology was stronger than the marriage—theconsciousness that the ideology was stronger than my life. Grandfathersaid before he was sent to Theresienstadt he wanted to see his daughter.My mother couldn’t go because of me. The main motivation of mymother was she didn’t want the child, me, to be parentless. I imagine itwas horrible.

After the war we were evacuated to Fehmarn on the Baltic Sea. Mypaternal grandfather was a schoolteacher who had been evacuated fromKiel with his school class, and we saw him there. I went to his school asa “Kiel kid.” During the war, my mother went back and forth toHamburg to the store. Even though it was bombed, there was stuff inthe cellar. My mother first called a friend to ask if the air was clear. Is itsafe to come? And she’d say yes, or no, they’re waiting for half Jews. Shewould go back to the train and leave. My grandfather was supposedly inAuschwitz [an extermination camp]. Either I forgot it or my mothernever told me or I had too much to take in at one time. I told my momshe never told me. Mother said, “Yes I did.” He was ordered to leaveTheresienstadt to bury corpses in Auschwitz and then came back toTheresienstadt. He was married to a Jew who starved to death inTheresienstadt. I read it here—in my mother’s memoir.

I’ve never married. Two sides to why I didn’t marry. One, I was alate bloomer, and, I believe, many men were killed in the war who werein my age group. Fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys, called the Wer-wolfe, were sent to the front. And then there was a time I just decided Ididn’t want to marry. I’m not an easy person to get along with. I’d bedivorced by now—at least once! At home I never had the chance to

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develop the character to get along with others, to learn the art ofrelationships. I reacted aggressively, which I learned from my mother,even though my mother finds any aggression an offensive affront. Idiscuss things with my mother and the conversation inevitably goes bad.My mother always ends up feeling offended. It’s hard to find one’s way.My father died early and so we were alone; there was no one there as acounterbalance. There was no correction until I was grown. The oldergeneration didn’t accept “back talk” from children. Mothers wouldn’tallow daughters to express themselves. I didn’t feel understood. I neverfelt understood. I had a terrible drive for freedom and my mother wasterribly anxious. Those two separate traits didn’t mix. The fact that itwas the postwar time played a major role, and I grew up with the motherof my mother. Three women in the household.

I got to be too much for my mother. I remember a situation thatmy mother couldn’t handle. We ran around the table, and she wasspanking me, swatting at me. She was so furious and couldn’t deal withme. She wanted a friendship. When I was older I said, more or less, “no”to a friendship. I said to my mother, “It’s not going to work. You don’ttrust me at all.” [Trusting others had to be hard for her mother after herlife in the Nazi era.]

After the war, it wasn’t possible to go anywhere alone. The waythingswere then is not at all how they are now. It was a struggle to survive.My mother was concerned with having food and clothing. We’d go tothe fields of wealthy farmers and gather grain [wheat and barley] that wasleft on the field so we could eat. Ja, vertrauen. [She sighs.] Yes trust. Ican’t give you an example. I just know that a deep trust is not there. LaterI came to the conclusion that my mother didn’t mature; she stood stillat one point and didn’t have the strength or the opportunity to growinternally into an adult, to become conscious of reality. This is theimpression I have sometimes. I think it’s a result of the situation in whichshe lived—to put it into perspective.

Identification? Identity? Ah, Identität! Identity. Who am I actually?I had problems with that but not anymore. I worked on that and dealtwith it. Who am I? I saw who I was and said “Yes! And now, Live!” Iknow I have this Jewish background that explains a lot to me. I see a

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great future in that. The biblical teachings. The basis of the Bible. It’stremendously important to me, and where the reason for such and suchlies. Where does this positive attitude come from? I have no fear, noanxiety, even if a crisis would break out. I’m certain that there will be aviolent outbreak against Jews. It’s not finished with the Jews. Theanimosity toward the Jews can’t be indefinitely suppressed. It’s not apleasant, conversational idea, but it’s my opinion. And I simply knowthat God is there. He stands by and defends His people. Otherwise onecan forget about everything and just cry about it.

In the Nazi time faith had disintegrated. I believe that the Jews, upuntil now, have survived in spite of the tremendous amount of persecu-tion and destruction—bodily and mentally [body and spirit] simplybecause God is there and because God keeps His word. In the OldTestament it is written that the promise is made to Abraham and hischildren to support them until the end of time. It’s God’s spirit that callsthe Jews to life from antiquity to a reawakening today. God has givenback to the Jews the Promised Land in Israel. I believe that. Some saythe Jews did not resist enough, that they walked into their deaths. Ibelieve the Jews resisted. Unto death. But there was this overwhelmingforce and the cowardice of the Germans, also the cowardice of theChristians who didn’t help. You know about this. When one looks at itmore closely, one notices that the Jews resisted. Ninety percent of theGermans were fearful. It is still dangerous today. I don’t go out into thestreet and say, “I believe this and that.” It doesn’t happen.

[As Sigrid recalls the following story, she turns animated.] I saw ayoung man on the S-Bahn train. He was very nervous, I could tell. Hekept glancing over at my newspaper. So nervous! He said to me, “I haveto speak to you. What kind of newspaper is that?” “It comes fromIsrael,” I said. “Do you have something to do with that?” he asked. AndI said, “Do you have something to do with that?” “Yes,” he said, “I’mJewish.” “Fantastic!” I said. “I have something to do with it in that Ihad a Jewish grandfather. I receive news from Israel.” The young manwas so happy. He belongs to the synagogue in Hoheweide. A trainconnection flashed at the front, inside the car. He had to get off, changetrains, go in another direction. I gave him my newspaper to take with

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him and told him he could pick up this newspaper for himself. I wasvery satisfied with that. This professing of one’s identity is veryimportant. It is so vital to give support.

But now it is Israel that has problems with race. In India there are3 million people who say they are of Jewish ancestry and want toimmigrate to Israel. People panicked in Israel. You must stipulate: (1)Jewishmother, (2) completely Jewish grandfather.When someonewantsto come into Israel, there are considerations because it’s so small. It’s alsoa spiritual problem. If everyone claims roots in Israel, then Israel wouldhave to open up to anyone who has anything to do with Christians, avague relation. Not practical. Jews are the roots and Christians the fruits.The fruits from the roots.

I’m in a group and there’s a circle of people there—old and young—who are interested in Israel. Probably more younger. It doesn’t reflect aparticular social class. I need to be cautious here; I don’t want to be seenas taking up the Israeli cause. I don’t want repercussions. Over Israel, myheart is moved. I’m convinced. My mother laid a certain foundation formy interest in religion, but I made the decision myself. That’s clear tome. This I know. I said yes to God, yes to the life foundation that Godgives us, yes to Jesus Christ, and in this respect it’s my decision andaccording to it, I live. I was eighteen. I remember the scene exactly. I wasin a vocational school and attended a Christmas celebration. One personin the class had to stand up and explain why we celebrate Christmas. Noone stood up. Not even the teacher. I stood up when no one else would.[She laughs.] I don’t knowwhy. I said, “Personally, I celebrate Christmasbecause I believe Jesus Christ was born and came into the world as theSon of God.” After I said this it went powerfully into my heart and I feltso convinced that I know this moment was the point at whichGod sealedit in my heart. In these few minutes there was a major change, anepiphany, for me. That’s how I experienced it. It continues now. Theprofession of my faith was the opening of the portals.

Parts of Christianity are difficult. If God did not choose these waysthat transcend Nature, he would be equal to us, and then we wouldn’tneed him. I’m not a theologian. I need someone—that’s stated ratherprimitively—who is, from my view, more than I am. I am a creation. I

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was created out ofHis hands. I say that as a human being. I need a creatorand a redeemer. During my life, I’ve noticed all of this. I need someonewho frees me, liberates me, from all the manure I carry around with me.I find it very interesting that this—it’s already been so long ago—Christian faith is interconnected with Jews, and that Jesus was a Jew, thathe was sent by his father for the Jews. When the Jews didn’t want him,he came for the Gentiles. For me, it’s so fascinating, I cannot tell you. Itlives in me like a new blossom everyday. I notice that the statements ofGod in the Old Testament, statements of prophecies—someone iscoming, Jesus is born, people come to Bethlehem—is a continual processthat’s going on today. I find those stories alive, living.

I believe there are people who have seen Jesus, aChristus Erscheinung.I know that happened in the war. I believe wherever the enemy is sopowerful and one cries out that God will appear in some form. He’llshow a person the right path to the shelter and then disappear. It’s noproblem for God. That Jesus has risen and then appears to others is noproblem for me. It’s a personal thing when one confronts God and askshim, “Do you live or don’t you? I have to know. I have to know it in myheart. I must experience your presence. Show yourself to me. Show mein whatever form you choose, whether you live or whether you don’t.”I think that anyone can do that.

I don’t recall having difficulties with being of Jewish descent. Yes,sometimes Germans can be unfriendly and poisonous, such as sayingWhy do Americans talk so loudly? orWhy do they treat black Americansbadly? I don’t want to descend to stereotypes but I must say, That’sGermany. That still is and always and again Germany. You can try notto take it too seriously, or pack your bags and leave. I see myself as ahuman being approved by God, not condemned. [She laughs.] That’svery important to me, and from that idea, I consciously live my life. Itake my place with regard to my obligations in the community whereverI see that I’m needed and when I’m asked. It’s now the case that I’mpensioned. I try to participate in the beautiful aspects of life. So, this ishow I actually see my role, to not just live for myself, but for others,whatever name it has in the framework in which I operate. For example,I wouldn’t go into the New Age movement and say, “I’ll participate!” I

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definitely wouldn’t do that. That’s how I see myself. My politics change.I am sometimes Centrist, sometimes left: SPD [Social Democratic Partyof Germany], not KPD [Communist Party of Germany]. I also voted forthe CDU [Christian-Democratic Union]. Because of the massive Abtra-gungs [dismantlings], I wouldn’t vote for the SPD. I never was really anactive party member. I think what the Green Party does—raisingconsciousness—is great. Up to now I haven’t voted for them. I vote moreaccording to issues, which is very difficult because one issue agrees withone party but then it’s the opposite.

Having been involved in a strong female society, I had no trouble.As a child, the things I went through with my mother were normal. Itwas a normal instinct to want to get away from parents, to look at theworld, to go away wherever I could go. I had a desire to undertake newthings. I had to get out from under my mother’s wings. I trained to bea nurse in Eppendorf at the university clinic. In my time this business ofwomen’s roles was not such a big theme. During the war I was concernedwith rebuilding, surviving, and finding an occupation. I was in nursing,with which men didn’t have much to do, or have a say in, anyway. Atthat time there were lots of female nurses but not male nurses. It wasn’tseen as an occupation for men. I never became involved in thesethematics. I never had problems with women’s issues. I never feltdisadvantaged as a woman. I led a colorful career. I was in Eppendorfand then St. George Hospital. I spent a half year with wayward girls. Iwas in St. Pauli [an entertainment district of Hamburg] for a year, whichwas part of church work to help women who were prostitutes, to helpthem get out of prostitution. It was part of theChristian socialmovementundertaken by churches. Then I wanted to go to the United States. I gotas far as the consulate and no further. Then I was a nurse in SouthernGermany in a specialized clinic for persons sick from alcohol. When Iwas a nurse in the clinic for alcohol sufferers [she doesn’t call them“alcoholics”], I had to participate in therapy. In the course of that, Ipicked up information to help myself. Quite a lot. I received wisdom topass on. It was good. I myself didn’t have an alcohol problem. Specialistsare sent to work with this—to find a way out of this addiction. To oneperson, it’s an addiction; to others, it’s something else. Everyone sees

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something in his life and wonders, “Now where did that come from?What is that?” I spent six years at a broadcasting station, TransworldRadio (TWR), an American broadcaster. It was a Christian broadcast.There’s aGerman-speaking branch inHessen. I worked in an occupationcompletely different from my earlier years.

Inmywork with prostitutes, every Friday I had to walk along certainstreets in St. Pauli, and I would speak to the women who were eitherstanding on the street offering their services or were on Herbertstraße, aclosed-off street, where they sat in display windows. We had leaflets andtracts to pass out and gave them an address where they could go if theywanted to leave their profession—we offered that. Once a week I visitedpeople who were in the hospital to administer penicillin to those whohad been infected. About thirty years ago venereal diseases were com-mon, and the prostitutes had to frequent the health agency and beexamined. I also visited there and tried to get these women out of theiroccupation and into the “home” in which I worked, a shelter where therewere beds and they could come and stay.

I don’t know what the laws used to be in Hamburg aboutprostitution. It was thirty years ago. I think the laws are more intensiveat present because of AIDS. Overall, I don’t know how it is today. Thewomen volunteered to come to our shelter. They had to go to the Boardof Health first and then to the hospital, where I visited them. It was anoffering from the church. If they wanted to climb out of their plightthey could live in this home off the streets. They often didn’t have anapartment—they could either go to the Reeperbahn [strip district] orthe streets. Not many got out. Four or five. They were totallydependent. I don’t have current experience—this was thirty years ago.I didn’t really encounter the drug scene. At the most, it was at thebeginning stages. It’s worse today.

I can recall only a little bit about my father. I have a distant memoryof his last fourteen days.He had been operated on andwas in the hospital.I sat on his bed, a four- or five-year-old, and swayed back and forth. Iwas near his feet and he said to stop, as his wounds were fresh. That’s allI remember. Everything else comes from my mother’s accounts. He wasvery happy about his daughter. Whether my mother just wanted to

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reassure herself, or whether it was really that way, I don’t know.He couldhave been a loving father, but what mother wouldn’t say that when herhusband’s been dead for fifty years?One puts aside unpleasantmemories.She glorified her husband—said positive things about him. He wasproud of me, but other than that, I personally have no recollection. Inthe time after I’d been in therapy someone askedme, “Have you forgivenyour father for leaving you so early, that he left you alone?” It unleashedthe rage in me because I was alone. I could fight my way through it once.I had a few dreams but it wasn’t reality. I think I missed my father. Iknow so. When I see people stroll along the streets with their fathers orwhen people marry and the fathers are there and they embrace theirdaughters at the altar, then I think, Man, that’s fantastic. It would begreat to have a father like these fathers; it brings tears to my eyes. Familyis so important—men and women together. Marriage is so important.That’s simply the basis. Certain feminists deceive themselves and arerepressive. I feel sorry for those who are against traditional structurebecause of past experiences left unexamined. Our matriarchal householdwas not paradise at that time. Feminism wasn’t on the table. We didn’tthink in feminist terms. We faced questions of survival. But I do seewomen as strong.

In this struggle to survive, my mother suppressed too much. Verymuch. Her emotional life is wrecked. I can tell you a story that’s veryfresh, a week old. It was my birthday and I invited a circle of friends overfor the evening. I invited my mother for lunch the same day. The peoplefrom her age group I wanted to have over on Sunday. I called her andsaid, “Come here for lunch at noon,” so she’d have an opportunity tosee me. She showed up forty-five minutes too late. She said, “I came alittle too late. Why are you making faces?” I said, “I had many goodthings planned for today and it was difficult rushing to get everythingdone near Easter time. I have to arrange other activities as well.” Sheneither excused herself nor apologized.We sat at the table saying nothing,and my mother said, “I’ll just leave now.” She didn’t congratulate me,just prepared to leave, wordless. It was horrible. Then I got the idea toask, “Mother, do you still remember your birthdays?” She said, “A little.”I asked, “How were they?” She said, “They were always terrible.” “Why

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so?” I said. “My mother always came too late,” she said. I could havecried out. My mother said, “She always came too late, was never ready,always found it a bother.” My gosh. It was the same pattern. She can’tget away from it, can’t excuse herself for it. Everything is covered up.That evening I had a difficult time putting it out of my mind. Then myfaith came back and I said to Jesus, “You were present and saw this. I putthis on your cross. I can’t live with it. It depresses me. It’s sad for mymother that we’re so speechless on my birthday. I want to be free of it.I put it on your cross.” That’s reality for me—that Jesus is present despitethe feelings that don’t come out. My mother can’t embrace me. I neverlearned real expression either. I had great difficulties and in some ways Istill have them today—to be close to other people, to take them in myarms, to be merciful, forgiving. I never learned or experienced that. Inoticed this when I was younger and based on how others reacted, I knewsomething was wrong with me and, to an extent, still is today. I have torearrange that. It’s not the way I want it to be. It’s still tough. Family lifeis vital and something I didn’t have. There’s no warm relationship,heartfelt emotions, nothing but covering up. There are severe problemsin a family if no one can express feelings. If you restrain your emotionsyou become unhealthy. I experienced that with my mother. That’s mymother’s case. It’s hard to separate the emotional down-stuffing fromsickness. From my mother’s writings, I noticed that she also came intothis world without affection.

In Germany people can be uncommunicative. The post-war gener-ation hasn’t worked it out. An entire generation didn’t face the past butkept it swept under. There’s nothing in school to confront this issue. Thegeneration over forty is problematic. One can argue they’ve pulledthemselves out because life has gone so well for them—everything isgood, too comfortable. [She refers to how quickly Germany was rebuilt,saying there wasn’t time to reflect, only to forget and prosper.] Theyconcentrated on their kids, having it better than the parents, and pushedeverything away. They threw away [whistles] the crap—didn’t deal withthe issues—just put it all to the side.Didn’t clean up. After thewar peoplejust wanted to stay alive. There is too much of the Third Reich on TV,but the good programs are on so late at night. The forthright, frank

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discussions, the Holocaust testimonies, such as four or five interviewswith survivors who now have high-level jobs in Israel, are broadcast at11:30 P.M. German people are sleeping. They should have it on at eight.We’ve become a superficial society. Broadcasters can say “Well, we hadit on.” I watched the films that came out ten to fifteen years ago. OftenI was weeping in front of the TV alone. Simply from what happened tothe people. Where was God? I forced myself to watch simply because Iwanted to know it more intensely. Ask me more questions. It’s not allthat well organized from my end. I’m too fragmented.

I didn’t realize in what kind of tension my mother lived. I was bornin 1934 and war broke out in 1939. Six years of war. I was a child. Inoticed only the tension but not fromwhere it came. I didn’t know aboutthe Jewish background, didn’t knowwhat was going on.Mymother heldit back from me. And looking back that was certainly wise.

My mother wrote to me about the drugstore going under. Aftermy father’s death we got a letter from the Gestapo district leader inBerlin. He knew where the business was and he knew there wassomething about my mother, that she was not “Aryan.” I don’t knowif this leader said “Don’t buy from Jews. Don’t buy from Lorenzens.”When the business went under, I don’t know if it was because of theJewish ownership or because people didn’t have money because of theeconomic downturn. Many people were unemployed; it was certainlyboth reasons. Mother noticed that Germans showed contempt towardher. I didn’t notice. As a child, I didn’t get it. The district leader couldhave easily arranged for my mother to be sent away. That’s the reasonshe always thought, “I’ll be taken away.” Then also the child will betaken away.

I don’t know much about Aunt Frieda, but I had asked my motherabout her. I’ll get the letter. [She reads from her mother’s manuscript]:

The brothers and sisters of my father had a household. Tante

Frieda left Berlin for good, but I don’t know why. She was

engaged but somehow it was broken. She was a clever woman

and could discuss all matters of cultural and intellectual life.

Here in Hamburg, she was on the sidelines, not in the center

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of activity. My second home was with my father’s brothers

and sisters. They were happy when I came. I visited whenever

I wanted. They left the key in a staircase so I never

encountered a locked door. In the neighborhood, I was

known as if I was one of them. Often I came for lunch or

sometimes for dinner. It was generally the case that I ate until

I was satisfied. The apartment was only ten minutes away

from mine. They also had a male cat everyone loved that

often would be gone for days or weeks. It came back beaten

up. I don’t know where the animal is today but this memory

is one I like to recall. For that reason, even if it doesn’t mean

much to you, I am writing this down. Those days we had

nicer winters without snow. I’m thinking about such things.

Every December 24th, I went with Aunt Frieda to church

for a Christmas service and on the way back we’d see the trees

with candles burning in the windows. It was a custom that

Frieda was at our place on the 24th. Not Uncle Albert. We

don’t know why. He had his own interests. I loved both of

them very much in my childlike way. Later, we became

distant. The “guilt” was mine but I don’t know why because

this was long before the time of the Third Reich. When I

loved them, they loved me in return. Maybe they wanted to

replace something that I didn’t have at home. Aunt Frieda

was excellent at telling fairy tales. She had lots of time. And

as I was often there we walked everyday—often in Mari-

enthal and Wandsbecker Gehölz. Sometimes we took the

horse-drawn carriage to Marienthal. She often used this time

as a chance to tell stories. She had a wonderful imagination.

Her stories always had new plots, new settings, and new

characters. She magically created these elves, water maidens,

kings and giants that I could imagine for myself before me.

The tales always had the same ending: “So, if they haven’t

died yet, they’re still alive today.” If I was ever sick, she’d

come in the afternoons. Of course she never came with empty

hands. She made hearty chicken, grape soup, puddings, and

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all sorts of stuff. Because of the expense, mymother was never

able to give me such presents. It was very important to me

that she had the time to spend. She played different games

with me. She had stories and anecdotes, jokes, to shorten the

time for me. When I had birthday parties and was allowed

to invite school friends, she was always there. She played the

games as if she were one of us. She always made sure that my

connection to my father wasn’t torn apart. My father was in

Berlin at that time and wrote to me. He never forgot my

birthday or Christmas. He sent packages with wonderful

things. He was involved with a confectionery and could

purchase items at a lower cost. These things your grandma

prepared for me. I have to be fair to him. He always took

care of me. He had good taste so that not only was I well

dressed but fashionably dressed. I always had new clothes.

Your grandma knew how to take care of things—her hobby

was to turn old into new. Regarding this, she was an artist.

With her abilities she fed me, and later you as well. Back to

my father. Unfortunately, we weren’t always satisfied—it

was bleak—although we never hungered, never lacked mate-

rial things. I noticed or had a feeling that the relationship

wasn’t good. No money came for me from Berlin. At any

rate, Aunt Frieda made certain we went to Berlin. After a

while, my father remarried and lived in Wilhelmsdorf in

Hamburg. Frieda would call at the office and ask if I’d been

to see my father, and I always had to say no. But I would

visit and was always received warmly. They were self-

employed—had a men’s hat store, which wasn’t what they

had expected. I grew distant from Frieda and Albert. I have

to ask myself, why? How is that possible? In 1928 and 1929

I had been ungrateful to Frieda for the way Frieda had taken

care of me. Even if it was not intentional. Later I married

and in the first few years the ties were looser but still there.

We’d visit each other. In 1933 I burned the bridges; it was

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painful, but there was no other way, mainly because I could

handle only one thing—my family.

Okay. That section is over. Then there’s a family, Groette. She talkedfrom there about a friend of hers who’d kept in contact with her father—Aunt Maria. That was the bind. In 1933 the Nazis had seized power andmy mother feared for me. My grandfather was Jewish. Only mygrandfather. Not my grandmother. My father was Christian. Mygrandmother toldme thatmy grandfatherwas baptized, but I don’t knowthe motivation. I know my grandmother married him for that reason—that he was baptized. I don’t know about the pressure that my grandfa-ther endured because of that. He certainly had it. Aunt Frieda, I believe,was in Theresienstadt and died. My mother writes,

Aunt Maria, a friend of my mother, got to know my relatives.

And she was also in touch with my father’s family. During

the Nazi era, she was in touch with everyone but me. She kept

up with Aunt Frieda. She maintained ties with siblings of my

father. In the beginning of the Third Reich, she went to

Peking for a year with her sister. When she returned, the

“Final Solution” was in the operational stage. She knew

nothing. Initially she wanted to go back to Frieda’s place. The

two were estranged. They probably were afraid. Aunt Frieda

didn’t even want to go shopping because she had to wear the

yellow star. Maria, being courageous, did the shopping for

her. Albert and Frieda moved to a nicer place in Hamburg.

Events became more harrowing. Uncle Albert died from

stomach cancer. Before that he’d gone blind. He was engaged

to a Jewish nurse who died shortly after him of the same

illness. Directly after his death, Frieda gave shelter to several

Jewish people. She also sent me things she had kept for me—

with which I had played as a child—a big painter’s book. She

certainly would have liked to see me again. And she invited

me. I didn’t go. Aunt Maria went in my place even though it

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could have been dangerous for her. In spite of that, there was

still a difference. It was an unhappy meeting. Frieda was

extremely disappointed that I had not come myself. She

couldn’t understand it. She still had a doll she wanted to give

me but due to the circumstances she refused to give Maria

the doll. In spite of that, she spoke with an angel’s tongue. I

never saw Aunt Frieda again. She was transported to There-

sienstadt and, according, to my father’s accounts, starved to

death.

[Sigrid cries.] It’s awful. MyGod. [She searches the document.] One can’timagine. I read this on vacation once—whew. I told my mother to writewhat she could. She didn’t really want to write it. She wanted to conceal.I wondered if I’d demanded toomuch? I said, “Write what you know. Andwhat you don’t want to write, don’t.” She was so startled that I stillconfronted these issues, that I’d want to know. She still has fears. I told mymother if you don’t want to tell people who you are, then don’t. I allowedher complete freedom in this matter. I didn’t want to put pressure on herand I was simply happy when she wrote something down. [Reading]:

One time your father said to me that he wanted to divorce

because he saw no other possibility. He was of the opinion

that for his people and his fatherland he had to make this

sacrifice, even though it was difficult. I could only guess at

how he reached this decision. I didn’t know what he was

thinking. Friends of his tried to talk him out of this. They

said, “Wilfried, das ist heller Wahnsinn” [it’s crazy]. You have

a good marriage, a wife and daughter, why not forget about

this Red Cross and party? You have a good existence—what

more do you want?” But none of this affected him. He said,

“A mistake made one time must be corrected.” What all of

this triggered emotionally in me I just don’t want to describe.

I couldn’t do it anyway. It seemed to me as if I were beating

my head against the wall and never hit on a hole. And I think

this was the way it was. [Sigrid is crying.]

Sigrid Lorenzen 267

Then she wrote somewhere, after my father was dead, that she’d readsuddenly in the newspaper that if women felt weak they could go getvitamin injections. So she went to the doctor’s and waited. When shegot there, a sign said it was only for “Aryan” women so she picked upher purse and left. Agh! You can imagine the effects when you areconstantly bombarded with downgrading messages like “You’re worth-less. You belong to a race not worthy of living.” Any messages like this.My father had two brothers, and one of them was a high-ranking Naziofficial. After the war, at twenty-three, I went to England. My father’sbrother said, “What do you want in England? A German child doesn’tgo to England.” [She continues to leaf through papers.] [Reads]:

The tension your father had from waiting for an answer from

the Red Cross caused a bleeding ulcer. He had to lie in bed.

In his own eyes, he was very helpless because the loss of blood

had weakened him. In this condition he said to me, “I know

why I am lying here so helpless. Because I never showed you

the letter.” “What kind of letter?” I said. “I received a letter

from Mother and Father that I held back from you.” This is

what I read: He had written to his parents indicating he

wanted a divorce given the present circumstances. But first

he wanted to wait for the results of the letter [a clemency

request] from Bohrman. [Basically, he was asking to break

the rules.] His parents both wrote, “Wilfried, under no

circumstances must you do this, even if you have to support

your family with a spade in your hand.” This I must ascribe

to them—they always supported me. Now everything was out

in the open. What could I say about it?

My mother was too proud to take money but didn’t have suitabletraining to earnmoney. She did a business apprenticeship. She often saidshe would have gladly become a teacher. Under better circumstances shecould have finished the Gymnasium [college prep school] and done well.She could have somehow gained self-confidence. It’s important to finishat the Gymnasium in order to attend a university and to have a decent

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profession. Also for internal knowledge, for mental development. Mymother thought, “I can’t become anything becausemy parents don’t havemoney; my mother doesn’t have any money.” Everything she earnedwhile she was engaged she had to give up to others.

I get the impression that this time in the old people’s home—andshe has also mentioned—is the best time of her life. She has no concerns.She receives a pension from the state. She lives well, does what she wants,and has no obligations. She’s doing fine. She doesn’t travel anymore. Sheused to travel a little bit but not too far. She gets out and walks aroundHamburg. Her need to travel also has to do with internal turmoil. Shecan’t stand being alone even though she’s alone. She has to go out lookingfor company. I interpret her roaming as her always searching. She wantstomove sometimes—aphenomenon of havingmissed out on something.One notices it much in older people—it’s a common occurrence—thatthey missed out.

It’s not so wrong if there’s something missing in my story. It’s okayas it is. It’s finished.

CHAPTER NINE

MARGOT WETZEL

“There was no part of lifewhere you weren’t asked whether or not

you were Jewish”

�

Margot was a tough, no-nonsense woman. She was veryliberal in her conversation and manner. She was the onlywoman who said immediately, “You can smoke or drink if youwant to” without knowing whether or not I did. Initially sheimpressed me as opinionated, pushy, and unfeeling, but, as Igot to know her, I saw that she was still inwardly confusedabout the Nazi years; for instance, she claimed she was not anoutsider in school, but said later maybe she was. She said herfamily was very affected by the laws but then later said shewas lucky not to have been affected. She also talked about how

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people are not tolerant but then she exposed her own intoler-ance. Margot was very proud of her accomplishments and ofhaving achieved financial success. Margot wore a rose-colortop and skirt that looked like a dress, and a diamond andsterling necklace. She also wore a gold watch and gold ringbracelets. She had beautiful blue and white china everywhereand green and white Holland Delft porcelain. Her entireapartment on Hagenau Street displayed wealth. She did notgrow up with it, however. Margot was in sales and did well inbusiness. She rose in the ranks of a company. She was marriedfor a few years, but her husband did not like her ambition. Shefelt oppressed by no one. Margot also pointed out that herfamilywas not intellectual and that her husbandhadboredher.

Her mother was illegitimate, a “full Jew,” and wasdeported to and remained in Theresienstadt (awork camp) forfourmonths.Margot talked about this event nonchalantly. Sheshowedme the gold star with “Jude” crudely written on it thather mother had to wear, and an armband that bore a numberand the name of the camp. Her mother had not been tattooedbut had to wear this band. It was chilling to look at, to touch,and to hold. I knew I was in contact with something dirty andunspeakable. It made my skin crawl. This was the first time Ihad ever seen materially, in my face and hands, the star andarmband. Margot guarded these items but did not appear theleast bit uneasy displaying them on the table. She mentionedthat hermother really had not suffered thatmuch in the camps,and, comparatively speaking, she had not been in the camp aslong as others had. Margot’s aunts and cousins were gassed,she assumes.

Her fatherwas “Aryan.”He broke downwhen hermotherwas taken away but “couldn’t do anything.” BecauseMargot’sfamily had “kein Geld in die Tasche” [no money], they couldnot immigrate. They also didn’t know what they would do fora profession elsewhere. Also, according to Margot, goingoverseas was not possible because they didn’t know English.

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Her father did not, however, divorce her mother. Had he doneso, she would have been doomed. As discussed previously,some “Aryan” spouses did divorce their Jewish spouses,whichI always thought was the height of cruelty.

At times,Margot emanated shallow attitudes; however, thiscould have been an attempt to protect herself. She often focusedon physical appearances. She was curious if my grandmotherwas slim or not because shewas connected to theBahlsen cookiecompany, [yes, she is] and she complimented me on having a“perfect physique.” She talked about her intelligent and formerlygood-looking father, who allowed himself to turn into a balloon.

Margot talked aboutOrthodoxJews and their rituals; sheseemed to think theywere silly. She did not identifywith beingJewish. She was appalled that neither the Americans nor theBritish bombed the camps or the train tracks. She said theyhad “information enough.” We discussed the importance oftelling her story and how sad it will be when the survivors areall dead. Margot agreed with this in the end, even though shewas not terribly forthcoming about her past.

My talks with Margot were uncharacteristically short.Indicative of her personality, she was an efficient storytellerand did not waste words. This made our conversations runsmoothly, and I was not so emotionally depleted. Margotcontrolled what she wanted to say and did not want to revealtoo much, even though she had contacted me with enthusiasmin answer to an announcement I had placed in the weeklyEppendorf paper. She said that ordinarily she never talksabout being half Jewish or what happened to her family. Shedoes not feel comfortable doing so.

� � �

My mother was born in 1896, an illegitimate child of a Jewish woman.My grandfather was unknown. My grandmother never told me who he

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was, but she said he was Jewish. So my mother was a full-blooded Jew.My grandmother never acknowledged her daughter [Margot’s mother],and so, for a time, I never knew exactly who my grandmother was. It wasa scandal in those times to have an illegitimate child. My mother wentto foster parents. She was born a Danziger. My grandmother had threesisters and one brother. The family stuck together and cared for mymother even though she was given up for adoption, andmymother grewup in several different foster homes and really had a bad childhood. Shewas pushed around from one family to another, and that’s not good forsmall children. When she was still fairly young, ten or eleven, she had totake care of things at home and be responsible. She delivered newspa-pers—because in those days everyone was very poor—very poor. Mymother’s family still took care of mymother, and she was with her familya lot. My grandmother and aunts all worked. They were simplehonorable Jewish people.

My mother married my father in 1924. He was “Aryan” and camefrom a simple family as well. The relatives were not so happy [about themarriage], neither on his side nor hers. His relatives said, “You’re marryinga Jew,” and her relatives said, “You’re marrying an Aryan.” They didn’tapprove. My aunt said, “We absolutely do not agree with it.” They alwayssaid, “Goy! Goy!” [not Jewish]. It was scandalous in those times. Accordingto the family, my mother was not a devout Jew, but you could somehowsense the connection she had to her roots. My parents got married anywayand my father was eventually accepted into the family.

My father was a bookkeeper and my mother was a sales clerk. Shestopped working at some point and I was born in 1926, a more or lessquiet time. It was after the first war and things were bad everywhere.There was poverty; there were so many unemployed people in Germanythat not even young Germans today can understand. I think from thefew Germans that were left there were 10 million Germans unemployed.And with the little government support, you could neither live nor die.You can’t compare this time period with today at all. In 1928my parentsgot their own apartment—that was really not normal [that they wereable to get an apartment], and until 1933 my mother’s and father’sfamily, for the most part, lived in peace and quiet.

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In 1933 I went to school and Hitler came into the government. Iknow that in my mother’s family, my aunts and their husbands were allJewish. I was only six years old, but I knew that they knew a bad timewas starting. This was all in Hamburg. I went to Ahrensburgerstraßeschool, then called aVolksschule [elementary school] inHamburg. Todayit is called Krausestraße and is a Gymnasium [college prep school]. Welived on Baumweg near this school. During the first years everythingwent okay. My father had a job and nothing negative happened to him.My father worked for a newspaper, theHamburger Fremdenblatt, then aconservative newspaper, which was taken over by the HamburgerAnzeiger. Then in 1937 my father lost his job because it was somehowknown—don’t ask me how—that Daddy was married to a Jew. So myfather became unemployed. He couldn’t find work with a newspaper, sohe went into the private economy sector as a bookkeeper again. We gotby then. It came to the point where the question was raised, “Is Margotgoing to the Gymnasium or is she staying in the Volksschule?” [Parents,not the children, made these decisions.] My teachers in the Volksschule,who knew about everything that was going on, were very nurturing andconsiderate in their treatment of me. They told my parents, “Leave yourdaughter here with us. Nothing will happen to her here. We don’t knowabout the Gymnasium. We don’t know what kind of teachers are there,whether or not they will harass her or she will be able to stay there.” SoI stayed in the Volksschule. I have to say that I was not sad or upset aboutit because I was a lazy student. I would have had to produce more in theGymnasium. I liked to go to school, but not to do too much work. Iadmit that. [We laughed.]

Then we lost our apartment in 1939 because we lived in an apartmentthat belonged to the city of Hamburg. We received the news because mymother was Jewish. We couldn’t find another apartment. I don’t remem-ber anymore when we were looking for an apartment if we had to say mymother was Jewish, or Mother said she was Jewish out of pure fear. Thelandlords did not want to have us, and since we had to leave the apartmentand had practically no prospects for an apartment, Mother finallydecided—my mother was really courageous and my father was the softerone—now I will no longer say that I am Jewish. So we found a new

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apartment because she ceased telling anyone that she was Jewish. Thenmymother was drafted into so-called work duty in Hamburg. It was notvoluntary. She had to work.Mymother had not worked after she had quither job as a sales clerk. She worked in a chemical factory where rat poisonor something like that was manufactured. She had to work in packaging.In 1939 we got the new apartment in Eilbek on EilbekerWeg.1 My fatherlost his job once or twice more for the same reason as before—mymotherwas Jewish—but always found another one.

In the beginning of the 1940smy father was drafted into forced labor.He had to work in the garbage, along with relatives who had to do thesame thing. My father had to work in the rubble piles because my fatherwas the least robust of us all. At that time in 1941, I thought my mother’smother, whom I did not know at that time was my grandmother, was oneof our aunts, her sister. I have to say that our relatives,mymother’s relatives,were pure Jewish. They were unmarried. They lived on Isestrasse, an areawhere very many Jews lived. Then they got grocery cards. We all got themin 1939 when the war began, maybe even a little earlier, I don’t knowexactly anymore. They could only shop in certain stores. My mother gotgrocery cards with a “J” on them, so all the stores where we shopped knewthat Mother was Jewish. For the most part people were okay. They didn’ttreat mymother any better or worse than anybody else. Many people werenot in agreement with anti-Jewish actions.While they did not do anythingagainst the policies, they did not do anything against the Jewish people.No, they simply left them in peace.

I began to study in 1941. I wanted to be a teacher, but that didn’thappen. I couldn’t find a teaching apprenticeship. People said, “We willnot take you.” But then there were courageous people—I found a fewcompanies who said “du” to me immediately. All of this transpired inHamburg. In 1941 all of our relatives were taken away. My mother’smother was deported, but her sister did not have to go. It was very clearlydefined by levels. People who were over sixty-five did not have to go, butmy great-aunt said, “I’m not leaving my sister.” So they went together.We were not so rich that we could do without some of our jewelry.Naturally some things we would liked to have had with us as remem-brances. In letters that my Jewish relatives received in January of 1941

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they were told that everything had to be left in the apartment. They wereso intimidated they didn’t even take a ring with them.Don’t askmewhatthey thought—if they would be coming back or if they thought thatthings would go better for them, I can’t tell you. They left just as theywere, and apparently were deported to Riga and probably never arrived.All were purportedly gassed on the way. My mother’s cousin—naturallyhe was Jewish—he’s somewhere in this picture here—he left also aboutthis time. I don’t remember if it was before or after—he went to Minsk.He probably did not arrive. My grandmother’s brother and wifeimmigrated to South Africa in 1935. The children, also Jewish, wentbefore them, and they followed. I must add that they never really gaineda foothold in South Africa. They survived, but they lost all roots. Mygreat-uncle had two shoe shops here in Hamburg. Of course, the Nazistook those away immediately. All the people who owned businesses lostthem. We didn’t have very much, so they couldn’t take anything fromus, but the two shoe shops that my great-uncle had were immediatelyconfiscated, and the money he received for them was nil—I don’t knowhow much anymore—I was just too young. Nevertheless, it was enoughto make it possible for him to get out because his children were sent toSouth Africa in 1935.My great-aunt died in Africa; my great-uncle cameback [to Germany] after 1945. The daughter moved to England; she saidshe couldn’t live in Germany any more. The son came back here toGermany and became a salesman—he was simply uprooted. My grand-mother’s other relatives died in the meantime because they were all old.

In 1943 we were bombed. I unwillingly ended an apprenticeship in1943. We didn’t have anything to eat after 1945, after my mother wasgone, because she was always the one who worried about that. She wasgifted that way [in her ability to get food for the family]. I couldn’t takeany typewriting classes or stenography classes because I always had to saywhether or not I was “Aryan”—until I said that I was.My father got luckyand was able to get out of his job working in the rubble piles because hemet a friend in some position of authority who took him to his office towork. He didn’t do anything there, but he didn’t have to work in therubble any more. [She pauses.] Yes, and after the bombing we movedhere, until my mother left in 1945. [Margot shows the yellow star.] My

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mother was only in a concentration camp for four months. She was avery courageous person and got through it. It was 1945, already fairlylate. The difficulties before that were worse. Your whole life was full ofhardships that you had to come to terms with those twelve long years.There was no part of life where you weren’t asked whether or not youwere Jewish.

In January she received a so-called Befehl zum auswartigen Arbeits-einsatz [Command to foreign/far off work duty]—that’s what they calledit then. It was horrible and a lie. My father ran his legs off to get to herand told me that I was not allowed to go, but naturally nothing couldbe done at all. We dropped her off at a school in the neighborhood ofthe already destroyed synogogue on Rappstrasse in Hamburg.

Old and young people were gathered together, and they left in thenight. My mother told us she came back on June 15, 1945, one day aftermy birthday. The Russians had by that time freed Theresienstadt. Mothersaw a lot of emaciated people who came fromAuschwitz [an exterminationcamp] through Theresienstadt—not just pictures, but she saw themherself. My mother didn’t necessarily have it too bad in the camp. Therewereno gas chambers inTheresienstadt at that time.Theywere beingbuilt.Theresienstadt was a so-called Vorzeigelager, an exhibition camp, becauseHitler showcased the camp to visitors to prove it was “decent.” It was all afarce. My mother said that people from the Red Cross came to look at thecamps. The children were told that when there were visitors they weresupposed to come up to a so-calledman named Rahmwhowas the camp’sleader and say “Uncle Rahm, Thank you very much for the chocolate!”Naturally none of it was true. I mean, the camps were manipulated thatway. That’s why the RedCross was able to come to the camps. They didn’tlearn anything about what was really going on. And believe me, it was likethat in every camp.Mymother said that they were probably there to buildgas chambers. One surmised that if they were building showers, they werebuilding gas chambers. One of our aunts came to this same camp in 1941.Our cousin, who was half Jewish like me, sent packages to her mother.There was something amazing about this camp. You will not believe it.The packages were actually given to them! The packages were sent thereso that they didn’t starve because they got only mini-rations. But the

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packages were given to them! I have never understood that my entire life.They actually survived because of these packages.Whenmymother arrivedin 1945, she found her aunt who had already been there for two years. Aslong as one did not starve, one survived Theresienstadt. Mother had itpretty good because many friends, relatives, and acquaintances werealready there, and they had everything arranged; one was in the bakery,another was in the kitchen. She was only there four months—one cansurvive for four months. My mother was forty-nine. [First Margot saysforty-five then fifty-one]. She was an age where one is still relatively sturdy.She survived fairly well because of her connections in the camp. She hadto work, of course. She said that she never understood what she had to do[what they made her do]. She had to shovel sand in piles andmove it fromone side to another, and they always watched them while they wereworking, but beatings or anything of that nature never occurred.The campwas terribly overrun by vermin and pests—roaches, fleas, and bugs. Wedidn’t hear anything from her during her four months in the camp. Onher way home she came through Dresden the day after it was bombed.2 Ifit had been a day earlier, she probably would have been killed with all thosepeople inDresden. [She pauses.] Yes, that was Theresienstadt near Prague.

When my mother was taken away, my father broke down because hecouldn’t do anything. Imagine. He must let his wife go away and he cando nothing about it. They take her away, she is imprisoned by SS [chiefpolice agency] soldiers who treat her as an Untermensch [as less thanhuman], and you have to say Good-bye, and you go outside and you seeyour mother standing in the distance and you wave and you know howdangerous it is and you wonder if you will see her again. Or even more,that she just comes back, right?We had already been bombed out and livedwith relatives. We went home. My father lay down in bed and cried.

We had heard about transports to the camps. In 1941 our relativeswere already gone. So in this respect we knew what was going on. Mymother was in a so-called “privileged mixed marriage” because mymother was Jewish and my father was “Aryan.” It’s just the opposite inJewish belief. According to Jewish belief, I am Jewish because mymotherwas Jewish. While I know that according to the Nazis, and in Westerntradition anyway, it depends on the father. When the father was a Jew

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in Nazi Germany, the family was in a much worse situation. But theytreated the most well-known intellectuals, civil servants, professors, andthose who owned businesses even worse. They had it especially bad.Think about the Jews who had their businesses taken away. My aunt,my father’s sister, had a clothing store here onMönckebergstraße. It stillexists—it’s called Altmeier; it used to be called Feldbeck. It was a Jewishbusiness, but it was immediately expropriated. Only when Kristallnacht[“night of broken glass”] occurred did we realize how many Jewishbusinesses existed. We had no idea!

I vaguely remember Kristallnacht. Because, as I said, we lived herein this outer area, and it happened more so in the inner part of the city.Naturally we were careful about going anywhere where something couldhappen because we always ran the risk of having something thrown at usfrom the roofs. I lived on Eilbeker Weg—a bit farther up from here. Wewere bombed out and then we lived in Eppendorf. [She pauses.] I thinkit was a lot worse in Berlin.

[Margot shows family photos.] But that is naturally pure Jewish,don’t you think? They are true Jewish families, while my mother isn’teven in a shawl. I would say they look like typical Jewish women of thetime. We didn’t eat kosher—we ate matzo and liked it. Do you knowmatzo? It is bread eaten during Passover. We did not celebrate the Seder.Therewas no differentiationmade between practicing and nonpracticingJews in Hitler’s time. For the Nazis it was not a religion but a race. Ithink it’s like that today, too. People still debate about it, you know. Iwould say it is a race.

Among my father’s “Aryan” family—cousins, nephews, nieces,sisters, brothers—there were one or two civil employees who never hadanythingmore to do with us. I can’t tell you whether from fear or becausethey were convinced not to. It was probably both fear and convincing.But then therewere also peoplewho visitedmore on purpose. So it varied.[Margot begins to recap what she had said earlier about a lot of peoplethat did nothing at all against the Nazis but did nothing for them, either.They simply behaved “like normal people.”]

I was a young lady then in the BDM [Nazi youth organization] untilI said that I was half Jewish and they threw me out. I had to go to the

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Kameradschaftsabend [evening meeting of friends]. It was very hard forme in the early days as a child. I was always an outsider. The kids all sattogether. They met somewhere, but I was not invited. It’s hard for a kidto understand. I was very sad that I was not allowed to wear the uniformof the Nazis. My father was afraid, and when he met someone he didn’tknow or who didn’t know him, he said “Heil Hitler!” out of pure fear.We couldn’t listen to the radio, and my mother could not go into anyrestaurant or pub. Every restaurant had signs: “Juden unerwünscht” [“Jewsnot allowed.” Literally, “Jews not wanted”]. She couldn’t even sit on apark bench—even the park bench said: “Not for Jews.” She couldn’t goto the movies; she couldn’t listen to the radio. She listened to it everynow and then, but no one could see her. The neighbors controlled you.If someone listened to the radio, he could be turned in. Children,especially in schools, all talked. Everyone was a policeman. It was verydangerous. We were actually scared of our neighbors and afraid of theSS. But we didn’t have any personal experiences with the SS. We werejust aware of these rules.

Concerning the race laws, it’s just as I said. My father lost his job;my mother had to work; I could not go to the upper school. I could notget a teaching job.We couldn’t get an apartment—we lost our apartmentbecause of the laws. There was nothing that you wanted to do withoutbeing asked whether or not you were Jewish or of Jewish heritage. Therewas absolutely nothing you could do. Wherever you went you had to fillout questionnaires which always contained such a question. They alwaysasked. They didn’t take anything from us. There was nothing to take.We had nothing. There were reasonsmy parents didn’t leave the country.The first point is: They would be leaving their homeland. The secondpoint is: They had nomoney.What would they have wanted in a foreigncountry? They could have saved their lives, which everyone had thoughtabout. First they thought: How long would this thing with the Nazislast? They thought that it would end sometime. Second they thought:Maybe they won’t do anything to us because we were together [becauseher father was German]. But my mother’s mother and my mother’saunts, my God, they were old, they were over sixty—where were theysupposed to go? Where? Holland? There was no escape in all of Europe.

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And how to cope overseas [in America] with not a word of English, nomoney in their pockets? Who wanted the Jews?

My father died very young. I was only twenty-six. I practically livedwith my mother until the following year. My mother was a simple, dearwoman, but she was not intellectually educated. She was an averagewoman. She was neither Jewish nor any other label; she was simply amother. People always said I was more of a Jewish woman than mymother. So my mother was simply like all the others. She was practical.She got along okay in life. She was a salesperson.

My father was much more intelligent, but I would say he was lazy.He was also pretty fat. When he played sports he was skinny like in thesepictures but then he stopped playing and got fat and lazy, even thoughhe was very intelligent. I can’t understand that even today. He read a lot.When we were bombed in 1943, he had his bookshelves lined all alongthe walls, and the house burned to the ground as we sat underneath inthe cellar, and we heard the bookshelves in flames. I think it broke myfather’s heart. [She pauses.] You have to imagine—it was hard to knowthat we would be free eventually through the bombing and nonethelesslose everything. My father was a well-rounded man and very gentlecompared to my mother. The fact that he lost his job weakened him andthis whole Jewish thing whenmymother was taken away.My father diedfrom a heart attack in 1953. He was obese; that’s the reason he had aheart attack. Everything weakened him. I got more from my fatherbecause of his intelligence. I really depended on him, in my marriage aswell. I remember that I asked my dad, “Should I or should I not getmarried?” And my father said, “You yourself have to decide.” And thatwas a bad answer. [We laugh.] I think I lost my mother too late. She wasninety-seven when she died last year. It was terrible losing her after somany years. I was closer to my mother. Even though we weren’t veryclose intellectually—she couldn’t understand me in what I thought ordid—she loved me very much. She spoiled me her entire life. She saidthe reason was because she had a bad childhood. She wanted things tobe better for me, as all parents say to their kids. I could hardly cook whenshe died, because she had done everything forme. Always. Up until abouta year before she died, she pretty much took care of everything, although

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I helped her. Therefore, if you ask me how I feel, I answer “Like anabsolute parasite.” I was friends with aman formany years and she alwayscame along. We had a weekend house and when we went to it she wasalways there with us. In this way I think she also had a wonderful life. Iwould have liked a child, one like you, but it did not work out. I don’tknow if I am happy or sad about that.

We were just as poor as everyone else, but everything was alwaysthere for me. My mother always thought three times before she boughta pair of hose, but if I wanted some toy, then I got the toy. She was fifty-six when my father died. She never remarried. So they made it togetherthrough the whole ordeal. That’s good because many times it’s not thatway. Many people are separated. If I had been married and had childreneverything would have been harder. My mother never had to wear theJewish star here in Hamburg; she first received it in the concentrationcamp. Being married to my father was really protection, but the Nazishad tried many times to get my father to divorce her. He was, to be sure,weak, but he never did that. Here is my mother’s concentration camparmband with her number, but it was not tattooed on her. As I said, herchildhood was terrible since she was illegitimate. We never learned whoher father was—she never told us. It was terrible. An illegitimate child—that was like a nothing child. She told me a lot about her childhood. Shewas, as I said, moved around, and she was adopted by another family.When shewas ten she had to keep house for a cousin—it was also a Jewishfamily. Finally she said, “I don’t like this any more. I’ve been doing itsince I was ten years old. I’m fed up!” [She pauses.] She never had a lotof time to learn, so it was no wonder that she wasn’t especially intelligent.She had the household work to do. It was a pretty hard childhood.Intelligence is of high importance in Germany, but it’s not onlyintelligence, but also knowing a lot about many things. You can’t justlive by saying “I have enough to eat, and I have a TV—before it was aradio—and my husband earns enough, and then world history is takencare of for me.” The world is so diverse and so interesting. There is somuch in the way of art: music or poetry or novels. The “little life” is justnot enough today. How can we understand each other if we just live ina limited world? How are we going to learn tolerance if we don’t know

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how it all fits together?What I ammissing today is theAbitur [pre-collegeexam] that I never got. I miss that. When I see my friend, who is superintelligent and got his Abitur when he was seventeen, he knows a lot! Idon’t need a dictionary; I can ask him. He knows everything and how itconnects to everything else. He knows the names of kings, which kingsthere were and how everything goes together. That is so important, notin order to be intelligent. But today that’s just not enough. Only eatingwell is enough, which is also important. It’s good and pleasing. And that’swhy I don’t think very much of the German school system. They nolonger teach any general knowledge. That’s important to me. They onlyproduce people who only know one subject. It was better before. Thekings are infrequently taught even in America, and it’s not taken seriouslyhere in Gymnasium. Just get the Abitur. That’s how it is. And look atgrammar. Since I am learning French there is so much about Germangrammar that I lack, and since I lack in German grammar, I cannot learnit in French. I admit that having both intelligence and other things tobe loved for would be nice. There should be a “mixture” of skills. I wouldsay that many lack that today in their jobs. They get out of school, knoweverything in theory, but lack in practical skills. They don’t know howto project their knowledge. As I said, my mother, although not intellec-tual, was a practical woman. She was very stable emotionally.

I remember in 1945 there were no more bombs here in Hamburgand the British came into Hamburg on May 8 with their tanks andFather and I went by foot to the store. We lived in Eppendorf. I willnever forget the feeling of happiness. There was fraternization. Weweren’t allowed any contact with the English, but I could have crawledto them behind the tanks. I had no brothers or sisters. I would like tosay more, but I can’t.

When it all began in 1933, I was six years old.We were so busy tryingto survive those twelve years and to move when possible within theloopholes which were given to us. We never came to the point where wewould discuss things. We survived. Whenever we went to our relativesbefore 1941 when they were all here, we ate halfway kosher—that was forthe quality, not because of the cook’s beliefs. The food was very treasuredbecause of the quality, but positively kosher it wasn’t. I don’t think any of

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us were interested. My mother’s aunts could cook very well because theyall worked, and they had a woman who helped them. It was a normalmiddle-class household. [She pauses.] But it was okay. My aunts also hadthe grocery cards with “J” on them, but my mother and my aunts couldnot shop in the same stores. They could no longer shop together.

You have to remember, in 1945 the mother element was absent inmy life. My father’s side of the family was wonderful—all of the in-lawswere too. When the civil servants were with the in-laws, they satsomewhere else, but my father’s brother and sister and others werewonderful. We also lived with my father’s relatives in 1943 after thebombing of the house. The family supported each other absolutely.

I wonder now, and I’ve wondered since 1945, why didn’t the Britishand the Americans just bomb the concentration camps? Can you tell me?Why didn’t they bomb the roads to them? No more wagons would havebeen able to drive into the concentration camps. I can’t understand that.Did theywant the Jews to die?Was it fair to them?They knew the horror;of course they knew. They had enough information. Everyone knew. Ifthey could just have bombed the cities, like Dresden, where nothing wasleft, and here in Hamburg, thenwhy not the camps? If they were worriedabout killing the Jews with the bombs, then bombing the roads to theconcentration camps would have sufficed. Die Gleise [the train tracks] !When I was in Israel in 1984—it really impressed me—have you beenthere? What an exciting country. I was there before everything got sobad. I experienced the old part of the city in full bloom. There was a guywho made the trip there with us—naturally a former German who leftfor Israel as a child. He said, “So that something like this never happensagain, so that we must ask people, “Why didn’t you do that?” [referringto the British and Americans reacting against Nazis]. Because of that weshould never give up arming our army. I can understand. Most peoplecan’t answer, “Why weren’t the concentration camps bombed?” Youreally can’t say anything to that. Who could answer such questions? Itwas a sad chapter in history.

But then there was also this problem:Who wanted to have the Jews?No one would let them in. Just think about Switzerland. The Jews wentover the mountains into Switzerland. Switzerland didn’t let them in.

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When one talks about the asylum-seekers today, I think so much of it isabout being against what happened at that time. Everybody always thinksthat all the Jews were rich. My God, there was an infinite number ofpoor Jews, and they weren’t all intellectual. They were just as dumb asother people. It was also true that even if some had money, they couldn’tgo anywhere with it. That’s how it was. They just couldn’t go. They hadto pay their passage. They couldn’t just say “I’m going abroad.” Justgetting to the border was an ordeal. If they could get to a boat, they hadto pay first, and with what when everything was taken from them? Afterso much unemployment in 1930, who had money? There was povertyin Germany. For everyone.

I don’t know that poverty was the reason for Hitler. I think manyfactors came together. First we can’t forget the Versailles Treaty. It wasa shameful treaty for Germany. Then in 1929 the recession was, so tospeak, over, and there was once again hope. Then came Hitler. He camein at the beginning of this opportune time whenGerman confidence waslow, and their morale was destroyed. Then someone appears who toldthe people that they were somebody. The work programs—the highwaysystem, the armaments industry—were created. He helped industry. Butpeople also thought, “Let him do something first, then we’ll throw himout.” But there wasn’t anything left to throw out. We had the conflictsof German politics. They destroyed each other. There was nothing there.It was virtually a vacuum into which Hitler came. He was the right manat the right time. There was the currency problem during the WeimarRepublic, and think about how the whole right side of the Rhine wastaken from us. Politicians did after 1918 what was not done in 1945,thank God. They wanted to destroy a foe, and that meant an entirenation. Naturally the German people were not religious or politicaleither. But how could they be political? By those estranged parties? Everyparty was eradicated—The Reichsbund (The old German federation),as everybody called it, and the SPD [Social Democratic Party ofGermany]. It’s not without reason that chaos emerged from theWeimarRepublic, from the conflicts of the politicians. Everyone was afraid ofthat. Then someone came along who had courage. That’s how it was.Let’s not forget that Hitler was elected by normal means, which helped

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him, but immediately after he came to power all the laws that governedbefore were no more and they couldn’t get rid of him. The role ofindustry was not especially good either. That never helped.

Foreign countries should have tried to contain him also. What wasChamberlain’s visit here in Germany about? He should have smackedHitler on the head. But they didn’t do anything out of pure fear. Theylet him annex everything, for instance, the Sudetenland.3 He could dowhatever he wanted. Did other countries do anything about it? No. TheGermans are mostly to blame, but other countries are also. Unfortu-nately, it was a terrible time for us. [She pauses.] The entire twelve yearswere full ofNadelstecken [“pin pricks” that connote suffering]. There wasalways something new that they thought up. Hitler was known alreadyas being a criminal element; he had been in jail and started all kinds ofright-wing activities, and he wrote Mein Kampf. Some people knewimmediately that the Third Reich was going to be exactly as he said inhis book. Everyone could have read it. He said in Mein Kampf what hewas going to do with the Jews. It was known. And don’t forget that anti-Semitism was already rampant. Think about Austria—the Austrianswere conceivably even more anti-Semitic than the Germans. They hadpersecuted the people just as the Germans

We had an exhibit here about two years ago in the Altona Museum,“400 Years of Jews in Hamburg.” The exhibit was excellent, but therewere somany Jews portrayed whowere city officials or part of the judicialsystem. It was incomprehensible. Therewere thousands of Jewswhowerelawyers or city officials or judges. If only they had removed or sent themaway during the Hitler years. Why did they simply kill them? I cannotunderstand that. They could have just forbidden them to be city officials.But they simply killed them. They killed all of the Jewish intelligentsia.Think about the artists—they killed all of the artists. Because of that,Germany has never recovered. The doctors were the first ones squelched.I don’t know why. They were not allowed to practice. The Nazis simplytook everything away from those who owned anything. They systemat-ically destroyed them, even when they were still here. [She means beforethey were sent to the concentration camps.] They were already destroyedwhen theywent away. Then theNazis reduced them in the concentration

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camps to an even lower level, to vermin. In the films that we saw, it wasnot difficult to humiliate people. I see at the moment this damned war—I don’t know if you’ve seen it on TV—and how they have reduced theGerman soldiers to humiliation.4 They said last night [on the news], “Wehadn’t eaten anything for weeks and then they gave us fatty soup whilewe were marching. We had diarrhea. You can destroy people quickly.[In English]: Any questions?

I don’t know if I feel more Jewish or Christian. It’s a good questionto ponder. I am outraged at the inability of the Jews to come to termswith the Arabs. They have had forty-five years to learn to get alongwith the people who they pushed out of Israel. I have to say that thisbothers me. The Jews could have proved how one lives with minorities,and yet they have behaved just the same as people in other countries.They have simply kicked them [referring to the Arabs] out because theydidn’t want them. It’s a shame. That bothers me. [She pauses.] But ifyou ask me whether or not I feel Jewish, when I see the people at thewailing wall, it seizes me, and I have to say I cannot understand thepeople who do not like the Jews. I don’t like them either. [She utters asound of disgust.]Hah! It’s terrible there! Everything begins with “too”:“too orthodox” and “too fascist” and I just can’t understand it. Whyhaven’t we learned any tolerance in all this time? That’s one of thereasons why we’re not affiliated with the Jewish community here. Ihave nothing against foreigners, but there are only foreigners in theJewish community. There are no more Germans. We were once at anopen Seder. My mother wasn’t there, but it didn’t do much for us. [Wediscuss various groups in Hamburg that had an open Seder to get toknow everyone, and the other group, an Orthodox one, where thewomen were separated in the kitchen while the men ate.] I believe it’snot like that in America, but I’ve also seen those Orthodox Jews inAmerica—the men with their hats, they all dance around. That’s justhorrible. [She indicates there are not as many Orthodox there]. I likedthe Jews in Israel; I would like to go there again. It really impressed meand I liked being there, even though the food was awful. There wasonly dried beef or poultry. [She is laughing.] But the Quark—we can’tforget the Quark.5 [She pauses.] When I was in Vienna and I went to

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where the synagogues were, and if there were restaurants around thesynagogues, I went to the restaurants, so it affects me.

I think it’s better if there wasn’t so much in the papers about theThird Reich. It’s better if they would stop. It doesn’t promote tolerance;I would say that it promotes anti-Semitism. When one thinks about theasylum-seekers, when one says one must behave in such a way becauseone has a guilty conscience from the past, one can finally stop it. I’m notsure if people are enthused about this feeling of guilt. In this area I wouldprefer not to say that I am Jewish or half Jewish. I’d rather keepmymouthshut. My French class that numbers about twelve or fourteen people allknow about me. But they are, I would say, more educated. They askquestions and are affected by it, and when there is literature, I take italong. That’s all different. But here in our area I would be a little scaredto have a Star of David in the house. Although I’ve heard some houseshave a Star of David on them in Eppendorf, I have not seen them. Therewill always be things like that.

I wanted to say that young people often glorify the past and thinkthat the National Socialistic ideology is for them because they can’t findanything else. They have fallen in a hole! Young people want to knowthe limits. Children need a relatively strong upbringing. They should betold by their parents “Youmay do that” or “Youmay not do that.” Therehas to be a foundation in place. [Here we discuss President Clinton,whomMargot thinks is wonderful, but believes he is probably likedmoreabroad.] The institution of the family has fallen apart in the USA, butthat is everywhere. You can go to the East and see it—you can see it inChina! With increasing prosperity, the family falls apart because every-one is thinking only of himself.

I didn’t get to know something like a generational family closenessfor a long time, because, like I said, I didn’t know who my grandmotherwas, and my father’s mother kept her distance. I was a very spoiled child,and my grandparents certainly were affected by that. So I never receivedreal caring, but instead people would say “My God, that is a spoiledchild!” So I never really had experiences with my grandparents. I hadmore from my dad’s brothers and sisters. Since I was the only kid in thewhole family, I was very spoiled by the family, but that was nice. I had

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an uncle who loved me a lot; and my aunt too. Then I got married in1951 and divorced in 1953, and my relatives never forgave me for it.Then the family fell apart. [Margot shows pictures of her and her ex-husband.] That’s me and that’s my ex-husband. [She pauses.] He was atotal bore! But then I blame his war relationships also. The soldiers werein those times released in certain cities, and they had to say when theywere leaving the army where they wanted to go. And so he went toHamburg. But his home was in Stuttgart. And when he got to Hamburgthere was nothing left! [She laughs.] No apartment! [She pauses.] Thenthe relationship—it was impossible to live with someone that way. I toldyou I got divorced because he was boring! [Laughs]. He was a good-looking man, but too big for me. He was 1 meter 86 centimeters (about6 foot 1 inch).

I have no kids. I had a really good job. I worked in an office for forty-five years. I was a sales lady for twenty years; I bought groceries, and thenI was in the management of a business. I was already a supervisor whenI was twenty-one. So I went straight into business. I have always earnedenough money. Having my mother’s reparation money made lifecomfortable for us, I admit; and today I am doing well too. I don’t haveto take care of anyone else, only myself. My mother received a lot ofmoney because she was old when she was taken. My mother got over1,000 Marks a month, I think. You know, actually, as a woman, I’m abad partner for women. I have always worked with men, and I’ve alwaysworked well with men. I don’t need emancipation. [She laughs.] I havenever felt oppressed. However, I am not the most sensitive, I’ll admit.Since I have always had a position of leadership, I could always makedecisions when it was necessary. I can’t understand today’s debate overthe role of women. You can’t deny that when womenwork and they havea family and children that normally it’s worse for them than the men.The men are free!

I had a friend who had a very good position. She then got marriedand said, “I want to have a child one day.” She had a child and didn’ttake the six months of maternity leave that women get here inGermany, but she took six or eight weeks. Then she got a nanny andcame back to her company, Otto Versand [one of the largest mail order

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houses in the world.] Today she has just as good a position as earlier.You have to have your priorities straight. Then you will not have anyproblems. If you let yourself be walked all over by men, then I thinkyou have no one to blame but yourself. You simply have to be strongand be with the times. But if a woman takes her six months ofpregnancy leave and then has another child and then another, whyshould a company keep her position for her? Tell me that. It just doesn’twork. I myself wouldn’t have worked with such women. Otheremployees do all the work for the absent woman, and then she comesback, and then the kid gets sick, and then she has to go back home! Itall sounds really good, but it doesn’t work. Therefore I don’t thinkmuch of these so-called Frauenquotes, women’s quotas.6 If women arecompetent, then they will get positions. I have friends who are married,but neither work. I have a friend who is not married, and she had justas good a job as I had. Single women are the ones who accomplishsomething in life, in the United States also, otherwise a woman has tohave a light bulb go off. Then she really has to put the children asideand can’t run home for every cough. That’s hard, I admit, but it’s true.Naturally there is something else: When women are married, the menare not as reasonable as the women are with the men. When men havean important position, the women play along. But when the womanhas the important position, then the man either does not play alongand work with her, or he is jealous. I have had that experience too. Iearnedmore thanmy husband. It was a point of tension. He was jealousof everything, including my better job. I have to say that I have beenvery lucky in terms of my career. I could have done it without luck,but I was lucky. I always got important jobs, but I could do them. Idid not experience prejudices in my career for being very successful andhalf Jewish. Actually it was the opposite. When I began in 1952 in theposition as a buyer, the owner of the company told me that he hadalready hired a Jew. In those days we always called them the so-calledVorzeigejuden [“showcase” Jews—the company had one so they didn’tneed another]. The owner told me that actually he had wanted to hirea non-Jewish person. But he hired me anyway, and it was after thattime, I would say, no longer an issue. In the job where I was a

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supervisor, the owner was himself Jewish. So that job was relativelysimple. But there was a connection, I would say, independent of beingJewish. The older man liked me and I liked him—even though he wasa Schlitzohr, a crafty character, a real Jew. [She laughs.] But it was okay.German men are hard to get along with, especially if they’re wantingmore than just the family and the children, that they want a profession.I believe that, and I believe that it has not gotten any better. It wasdifficult before and it is difficult today, for different reasons. For one,men don’t want to give up their feeling of comfort. If the women arenot at home, men lose a bit of their feeling of comfort, and I wouldsay there is a certain amount of jealousy. Oh, please! Whoever is themore competent should work. But that is, I think, very complicated.Perhaps German men are not quite as liberated as men in the States,although I have seen the opposite here in Germany. But I have alsoseen some men who have these same prejudices that we have beentalking about. It also depends in which type of family you grew up.

I have not seen myself as an outsider because of my Jewish heritage,since I had no problems in school.While I was trying to get an education,I may have been an outsider. I felt that I was affected, and it made meangry, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I felt like an outsider becauseI had many friends with whom it really wasn’t an issue. No, I couldn’tsay that I felt like an outsider. You have to think, in 1945 I was nineteen.Not that I didn’t understand what was going on, but as a fairly youngperson, you get through such things better. I don’t know what I wouldhave thought if I were twenty years older, but I don’t even think that mymother felt like an outsider, only that the persecution made us angry.Not that we were pushed to the edge, but the harassment that we had toendure simply made us angry. I think my father felt more “outside” thanwe did. We always fought against it.

You have to think, I had already met my future husband during thewar. He was in the Navy, and he knew that I was half Jewish, but thatdidn’t change anything and didn’t matter. If one wasn’t too involved,like, for example, a doctor whose practice was taken away, I think werelatively “small” people were passed over, but one might have to leaveat some time if one was important. We didn’t really experience segrega-

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tion in that sense. Nothing was taken from us. My father lost his job,but we learned to get along without it. Things were going badly witheveryone. Since we did not get together with Jews, I have to say, we didn’texperience it. We weren’t in Jewish circles where it could be discussedtime and again.

Out of the twelve or fifteen people in our family, only three or foursplit up. Nothing changed. It was not an issue with us. Things were bad,but there was no major effect on the family. The family stayed together. Ireally cannot say how we felt about the whole racial persecution from thebeginning up until my mother went to the camp. It was not a problem. Itbecame a problem because something happened to us. When my motherwent away I know that we all cried together. But it was just the same as ifshe had become a soldier—it wasn’t particularly because she was Jewish,but because she was going away, because of the situation. I andmy relativesweren’t convinced that any person was anUntermensch. There were somewhowere convinced, butwe didn’t have any contact with them.They said,“We don’t want to have anything to do with that. We are public workers,and we don’t want to have anything to do with you.”

No one inmy family was religious.Mymother’s relatives felt Jewish,to be sure, but they weren’t really “religious.” No one read the Torah.That’s how it was, generally speaking. I would say that they lived like theJews in Israel today. Well, there are certain things—the man whoaccompanied us to Israel, his son was circumsized. He said that it wascompletely logical that his son was, but they lived “Jewish” onlyminimally. I was never in a synagogue as a child. I didn’t even know thesynagogue that was destroyed on Bornstrasse. Many “half Jews” werebaptized Christian and had never been in a synagogue. Similarly, myuncles were soldiers in the war [World War I]. One of my uncles said,“What can happen to me? I was a soldier!” They couldn’t believe whatwas happening. They only wanted one thing: to be German. I feel badly,I admit, badly, that the Germans were Nazis. I just don’t understand thatat all. What can we do about it? Nothing at all.

They were afraid. The ones who committed these atrocities were notall SS men. I have been friends with an SS man for many, many years.He had absolutely nothing to do with the atrocities. He went to East

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Germany after the war because he was so sure that no one could pinanything on him. Everything is in the Soldbücher [military books] thatexisted then. In these books is recorded exactly where every militaryperson was and where he was assigned. He said he never even saw aconcentration camp from the outside. So see, that happened too. He wasreally in the SS—he was drafted into it. He was in one of the Napola.7

There were these National Socialist institutions where you went whenyou were fairly young. He was there. It wasn’t all SS people running theconcentration camps. It was the so-called Feldpolizei [field police] branchof the SS who were there. I know them too. They walked around withthese Blackshirts. There were SS men, and then there were these others.We always said they were like so-called guard dogs. It was a very finedistinction. [She pauses.] I mean, we can’t forget that whenwe talk aboutSS men, they weren’t all directly involved. My friend had the blood-typesign on his arm. He was a legitimate soldier. He said that they had onlyone disadvantage—they were always sent where it was burning. When-ever there was a problem they had to go. From his group of one hundredmen, only ten survived. They were against the Nazis from the beginning.It was hard to be a soldier. And there were certainly many of them, andthey weren’t all enthusiastic soldiers. [She pauses.] It was terrible. Thewar was terrible.

I believe there are still Nazis in the government. That’s how itstarted in 1945. Globke, who wrote commentary for the Nazi laws, Ibelieve, was Adenauer’s closest advisor.8 Of all the judges, only one wasconvicted—the others were let off. Those who say they want toreconstruct East Germany’s past should first reconstruct the Nazis’past. Nobody was punished when they should have been. It’s crazy. Imean, if a Nazi had done something, likeMengele for example, I wouldsay that he has unfortunately lived free for too long. I don’t understandthat at all. But there is something else that happened in 1945: TheBritish, at least here in Hamburg, wanted to keep the government. Ifthey had thrown out all the judges, it would have collapsed. I mean,with East Germany, we could send people from the West. But whatcould be done in Germany in 1945? Simply leave the people in theirpositions. The government had to be maintained—the English knew

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that. They also knew that they would leave the North Sea waters in thesea.

I would say what happened in Germany could happen anywhere.Think about Cambodia and Pol Pot. It might not happen in the UnitedStates, but I don’t think it could happen in Germany again either. Iwould say that we have the youth to thank for that. I don’t think thatthe youth today would let such a thing happen to them. Think aboutthe atomic weapons—it would cause an uprising. Today it would be outruled in Germany, I think. But basically it could happen anywhere. Itdepends on how bad things are with people. When times are bad and a“holy speaker” comes along, that’s it. All we have to do is think aboutSouth America, where someone promises the people something and theyalways believe it because people are gullible. That’s exactly what I wantedto say. It’s one of the reasons why it could hardly happen in America.America is too big. Here we are too small—everything is too closetogether. Such gruesome deeds can happen in small countries, that’s howit is. But not in America, although the driving out of the Indians is aterrible chapter for Americans.

In regard to the Polish Jews, the Poles did nothing at all to protecttheir Jewish counterparts. That was another group of people who werehappy to get rid of Jews. Others were persecuted as well, but I don’texpect much resistance from the Gypsies either. My parents were notpolitical at all. I have a woman friend whose parents were very involvedin the Socialist party. I believe the man was imprisoned in 1933. He wasnot Jewish. The Socialists were killed first, and then it became the Jewswho were centered on. They, of course, lost their jobs and everythingand lived on a minimal amount of money. They didn’t have a job. Youcan’t determine frombirth certificates whether one is Communist or not,but there were, of course, party registers. With the Nazi takeover ofpower, the Socialists and Communists were immediately eliminated.You have to remember, everything was registered in Germany at thattime. That’s why they found them immediately. It’s still like that withthe Protestants and the Catholics concerning church taxes. But that’s nolonger an issue—whether you are Catholic or Protestant. Germanyovercame that, thank God.

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There was not any resistance. I would say that people consciously“looked away” because they were all afraid—you can’t forget that. Theresistance movement was minimal. And something else: The Nazis werecarried along with the general public. It’s not that the Nazis reactedagainst the people. Rather, because of the times then, the people weremanipulated. We only have to look at the old pictures at how they wentalong when the Nazis held their speeches. They agreed. And about theatrocities, I would say that the Germans always knew about them butthey always looked away, and thought, Just don’t have anything to dowith it. [We discuss the Swing Youth. Margot mentions Teddy Stauferand her English albums. She sings “A Tisket, A Tasket.”]

I do not remember any incidents that happened in the street againstJews, probably because we lived too far from the Jewish part of town.The Jews lived on Rothenbaumchaussee, Rappstraße, Isestraße, Grindel,Grindelberg—they were mostly there. Our relatives also lived there later.I feel lucky that I wasn’t affected. Nothing really happened to the “halfJews.” If they were brought up Jewish, if they were in the Jewishcommunity and Jewish religion, then the same things happened to themas if they had been Jewish. But basically nothing happened to the “halfJews.”Morewould have happened after 1945 if thewar had lasted longer.As far as I know, there weren’t many “half Jews” in concentration camps.That would be news to me, unless they were brought up Jewish. TheNazis probably had enough to do already with the Jews [in reference towhy the Nazis didn’t send all “half Jews” to the concentration camps].

There were people who helped others escape. If I had had to goaway, I had a colleague in my company who had offered, and I believeshe was serious, that if necessary, she would hide me. Certainly therewere people like that. But the whole thing is problematic. We[Germans] had nothing to eat. Whoever hid someone also had to feedhim. And who knew how long it would last? You can hide someonewhen you know how long you’re going to be hiding them; but to hidesomeone for years and feed them at the same time, no one can do that.More would surely have done it if they knew that they were only goingto be hiding someone for a couple of months. But who knew? And thatwould mean that you could not go outside again. [She is referring to

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the people being hidden.] Even inHamburg that happened. But I neverhad to answer that question.

Today Germany is more political and religious than in the past,without question. [She pauses.] I would say there is no comparison.Think about our voter participation and think about America’s.We havealmost 80 percent voter participation. I would say we are much morepolitical than the Americans. [She pauses.] I think it is better here. Theindifference of the Americans bothers me. You can’t avoid voting andthen complain about who is elected!

I would say, finally, I need to talk about this past and have thesetapes and paraphernalia to remember because people start to forget whathappened.

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CHAPTER TEN

URSULA BOSSELMANN

“I stood at eighteenlooking into nothingness”

�

Ursula Bosselmann was one of my last interviewees. Herapartment was small and plainly decorated, as was the casewith most of the women’s dwellings. Books lay everywhere;one by Anna Freud and others by various psychologistssuggested to me that Ursula was and is searching for answers.Ursula, in her late seventies, was dressed in a simple skirt andblouse. She was large in stature with white hair whose wispslay haphazardly around her face like thin, curled ribbons on aChristmas present. Her big, crooked teeth, larger, round nose,and the characteristic deep wrinkles that so many of thewomen possessed contrasted with her small, sagacious eyes.Her soft, reserved voice, graceful long legs, and folded hands

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reflected her two professions—minister and dancer. Through-out our talk, she sat up and then back in her chair. She roseonly to pour more tea or to take pictures from the wall.

Ursula contacted me after having read my announcementinDie Allgemeine JüdischeWochenzeitung [the Jewishweekly] thatstated I was looking for survivors from “mixed marriages.”Ursula explained she hadwritten a shortmemoir of her life. Sheemphasized how she was in a Jewish-Christian organizationwhere both religions worked together. There she met PastorArnulf Baumann. After she got to know him, he asked her in1991 to write a section for his book Ausgegrenzt about “non-Aryan” Christians.1 She mentioned that she and two otherpeople translated a bookby Rabbi Dov Edelstein from Englishinto German.2 She met Edelstein in America; he now lives inIsrael.Hehadbeen inAuschwitz.Hedidn’t speakGerman, onlyHungarian, English, and Hebrew, so Ursula had to speakEnglish with him. She pointed this out because she now strug-gleswithEnglish. Themenorah in her apartmentwas a gift fromhim. She prizes thismenorah, which symbolized her connectionto the Jewish religion. Although she had no spiritual affiliationwith the Jewish faith and no interest in practicing, she hadstudied the faith in depth andhad apassion for discoveringmoreabout it. The pictures in her home are the same subjects thatappear in herwritten and oral autobiography—one is of her andher two sisters,Gisela and Irmi, together in flowingwhite cottondresses in which it is apparent that Irmi, the youngest, has alarger head than normal. Clearly, Ursula was protective of her“slow” sister who caused strain in her parents’ marriage. Thereis a formal, elegant portrait painting of hermother, towhom shewas irrevocably attached, and her mother’s only brother whodisappeared in Auschwitz, and a recent photo of Ursula withher mother. Both bear facsimiles of the other’s nose and mouth.

Ursula spoke English intermittently but then would say“I must speak in German. It’s difficult if I don’t speak inGerman.” Because she is very open about her past as a

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Mischling, her story is extensive and detailed, and the headingsthat she originally chose when writing down her life remain inthe final story here. The following is a translated fusion ofUrsula’s written and oral text.

Ursula’s story still stuns me, as did Ruth Wilmschen’s,because of the tragic lives of all the women involved. Silencekills. Ursula’s Jewish grandmother committed suicide beforeshe could be deported; her mother was deported to There-sienstadt (a work camp), and after the war her sister Giselacommitted suicide. Ursula is fascinated with the concept ofsuicide. Do survivors ever wonder if death might have beenmore peaceful than carrying on with their memories? On theother hand, it takes incredible courage to kill yourself.Ursula’s grandmother felt she would have a better life in theafterworld, as she had fought and was exhausted in Hitler’sworld. Indeed, many of the Jewish andMischling women didnot own their own lives; so by taking their lives, theyreclaimed power over them.

Ursula was an “illegal” dancer during the Third Reich andlater became a theologian. She managed to work in Germancongregations in other countries for over forty years. Not untilrecently did she return to Germany and settle down the streetfromwhere she used to live; an unconscious decision, she claims,to forgive, just as her studying to be a theologian was to forget.She spent ten years in psychotherapy with the famous psychia-trist Margarete Mitscherlich after reading the 1967 ground-breakingbookThe Inability toMourn:Principles ofCollectiveBehavior

that Mitscherlich co-authored with her husband.3 The bookdiscusses the “collective rejection of guilt and its psychic conse-quences for the individual as well as society.” It sold more than100,000 copies in the original edition. Germans had unresolvedconflicts resulting from the collapse of their society. Ursuladesired to be healed by this woman. Ursula appears to be one ofthe few testifiers who has integrated her split selves and over-comeher physical ailments. Shehadmigraines for three decades.

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Ursula has commemorated her mentor by placing aframed photograph of her in clear view, even though she didnot, ultimately, follow Margarite Mitscherlich’s suggestionthat she not return to Hamburg. Ursula’s return to Germanyand to “those Germans” who persecuted her and her family inmany respects ignores the Mitscherlichs’ analysis of the Ger-man’s chronic “inability to mourn.” If, as Mitscherlich pointsout, innumerable Germans cannot even consciously acknowl-edge their reverence for and participation in the Third Reich,then certainly they would never solicit Ursula’s story nor seeher as anything than what she was before Hitler—a German.Thus, Ursula, like some of the other women, remains mute ontopics unpleasant to nonpersecuted Germans in order to “fitin.” By being forced to conceal her past, she is never again fullyGerman. If Ursula is inside yet outside—German, yet notGerman—who are the Germans?

� � �

What struck me about Hamburg were the cast-over, deep shadows, yearsbefore we had to darken the windows in the evening because of planeattacks. In spite of that, I have come back to this city after exactly fortyyears, for I have my roots here. I love my father city. It is, yes, really thecity of my father. I love the Alster with the white fleet, the many yachtsand swans. And the large old houses between Rabenstraße and EichenPark. And naturally, Jungfernstieg and the Neuen Wall. I love Uhlen-horst, where we lived in the Overbeckstraße, went on Graumannsweg tothe school, and were confirmed in St. Gertrud Church. And I add to thatEppendorfer Landstraße where we survived the war and all of the terror,and where my parents’ apartment stood until 1985. In addition, aroundthe corner, not far away fromHamburg, are the Baltic Sea and the NorthSea. One sensed the sea wind near us and it was suggested that sometimesyou could smell it. I have a special love for the ocean. Already as a smallchild, I had dug on Timmendorfer beach on the Baltic. Keitum in Sylt

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became our summer paradise. Berlin is the city of my mother and, aboveall, the city of my grandmother. Because it was always the autumnholiday in our youth that we spent at our grandmother’s in Berlin, thestreet names—Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, Lietzenburger and EmserStraße, Kufürstendamm, Unter den Linden, Brandenburger Tor,Grünewald, Potsdam—sounded like children’s melodies that accompa-nied the falling green and yellow leaves. We traveled a last time in peaceon Easter to Berlin. That was in 1933. After that the forthcoming events[of Hitler’s Reich] crept up on us children like something eerie andunnamable. We were only aware in part, but not in whole, becauseeverybody’s parents remained silent as long as possible.

LIFE IN THE FAMILY

On Easter 1936 I left the private middle school, Mittell und Redlich, inHamburg’s Graumannsweg with an intermediate secondary school certif-icate. Even belatedly, I cannot say whether and how this school alteredunder National Socialism. Did we have “party-friendly” teachers? I believeno. I recall therewas a “flags parade” on the playground.This “flags parade”was probably obligatory for all schoolchildren.4 One episode occupied ourminds for some days, although we really did not grasp its significance. Wesat in a school performance of [Friedrich Schiller’s] William Tell in theHamburgerSchauspielhaus [theater]. Itwas explained tous beforehand thatwe, in the manner of Rütli-Schwur 5 [a Swiss oath] would have to stand upand raise our arm in aHitlerGruß.6 At the words “We want to be a unitedpeople of brothers, no trouble and danger separate us,” we stood upsolemnly. A girl frommy sister’s class took a comb out of her pocket, liftedit over her head, and combed her hair. When we reported this at home,my parents exchangedmeaningful glances. The recalcitrant girl was kickedout of school. I was fifteen years old.

We were children of our time. On school excursions we sang theHilter songs. They were easy to sing. We didn’t understand the contentsat all. What did it mean: “Red front and Reaction?”7 We were, likeeveryone else, exposed to propaganda; for example, in the newsreels andfilms shown at that time. I remember a trip at Pentecost to Dreisacker

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near Glücksburg [a town near theDanish border in Schleswig-Holstein].We rode in an open car of Uncle Diederich D. Gisela and I greeted thecars driving past us with the Hitler greeting. We had a lot of fun withthat. At the time, we knew nothing about the Nürnberg Laws.

My father was a lawyer. He hailed from an old Hamburg familythat still adhered to formal traditions. Thus, mymother used the formalSie (you)8 with her father-in-law, and he with her. This was a Hanseatictradition. Similarly, my father’s father probably stood on a pedestal forhim. Although my father was a good lawyer, he had—how do I say it—not selected his occupation very sensibly. His main interests turned toliterature and theater. In those subjects, he was a walking dictionary tous children because he knew about all of the operas’ and plays’ mainfigures and he knew which well-known singers and actors had playedin what roles in specific years. The director of the Schauspielhaus andthe Thalia Theater, among others, befriended him, and he was also thelegal advisor of the Thalia Theater for several years. In this function,he appeared one time as the Thalia Theater’s defender in a case. It wassaid that an employee had lost his life on a fast, down-moving elevator.It is the only time that I heard my father deliver a summary in thecourtroom. It made a huge impression on me. My father possessed, aswell, considerable general knowledge, and spoke, like my mother,fluent French, for he had completed one part of his studies in Lausanne.Unfortunately, he could not deal with money. As soon as it hit hishands, he spent it gladly and generously. In 1933 he won a case and toamuse us bought a small car. However, he was not capable of keepingmoney for long.

Before 1933 my father was in Stahlhelm.9 Beginning in 1920, hemanaged a practice in the inner city. In 1938 he moved us to anapartment on Eppendorfer Landstraße. From there we moved to theOverbeckstraße.My father’s father was already dead in 1905.My father’smother married a second time to the shipbroker, Paul Günther.His firmstill exists today. My grandmother died at seventy-two in 1932 afterbeing sick for many years. Every time we visited my grandparents in theold Rabenstraße in the suburb, Harvestehude, we went with a little “fearand trembling” because of their reserved manners. I can see us on the

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steamer that we boarded at the Uhlenhorster ferry stop and rode to theother side. One afternoon comes tomind when the advent candle starteda fire on the coffee table. Before we could scream, my mother hadcourageously gripped it with her hands, pushed open the balcony door,and put it out in the garden. Christmas Eve, our grandparents came toour house with UncleWalther, my father’s brother. There was carp withhorseradish. The table was festively laid, and Grete, our house-girl,served. We were always happy to have lived through these ceremonies.

My father was alt Hamburgerisch, old Hamburg. He didn’t knowhow to handle kids. When we grew older, we talked about theater.Maybe this is why I had a calling for the theater. One could discussthat with him. Of course, when I worked for him I talked with himabout legal matters that I had to record. But not a lot. He wrote aboutdivorce, and I didn’t understand it. He worked with divorce cases—often they disputed over whether the property was the husband’s orthe wife’s. As a young girl, I found this horrible. It was such a pettymatter but, at the time, so important. To me it was silly to get workedup about material items.

Oddly enough, a father figure remained very colorless for me,although I had worked some years in my father’s office and we shouldhave been bound by our interest in the theater. However, there was trulyno interior relationship.When he died in February 1957, he disappearedwithout a trace from my life. Ours was not an internalized relationship,intimate. It wasn’t evil or malicious; I never hated him, not at all. It wasa neutral bond. It had to do with my mother doing so much for myfamily, taking care of everyone. We traveled in the summer. My motherwas there but my father did something else. It was more like a familywithout a father. When he was there he was on a pedestal—we had tobe quiet. We couldn’t talk at the table. My parents loved each otherdespite being different. My father didn’t make a mistake in marrying myJewish mother. In this generation: Once married, not to be discussed.There wasn’t a question about it. It was a loving relationship. It was clearthat one person would remain faithful to the other. It was deeply rootedfor him—Hanseatic that he was. Later my mother had to do everythingalone. We couldn’t hire anybody. My mother fulfilled this role fantasti-

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cally well. Never complained. Never said anything. Everything wasstrange and new and stressful. She had a strong character.

My mother came from a Posener family.10 I don’t think it wasdifficult that she was Jewish because she was baptized as a child. Hermother and brother were also baptized. Opapa, as we called mygrandfather, owned a cannery there that he expanded considerably afterthe move to Berlin. He had already died in 1923. I was just five yearsold, yet I can still remember him. I also remember that in my grandpar-ents’ bedroom, a big, greenish lion’s head hovered over the wash bowland whenever you pushed a button water flowed out of his mouth.

This grandfather left my maternal grandmother a considerablefortune. According to my mother’s statements, her childhood and youthwere full of promise and lucky. Many times she spoke proudly abouttrips that both she and her brother Helmuth took with their parents—trips that many people in those times were not in the position to finance.For a year after finishing school, she stayed and worked in a Pension nearParis that she would rave about in her old age. I own her diary writtenin German script that records this time. Up until her marriage she playedviolin very well. My parents’ marriage took place in summer 1917 inBerlin—my father in “neat uniform,” my mother a very beautiful youngbride.We three sisters, I, Gisela, and Irmi, were born in 1918, 1920, and1923 respectively. My parent’s marriage was—as only I can arrange inmy mind in retrospect—severely burdened by the birth of my youngestsister, Irmi, whomade it through a so-called birth trauma andwas viewedas physically handicapped. My father could not cope with this “insult”that stained his reputation.Only thirty years later was he really reconciledwith his daughter. My mother had a very special love for this child andfought for her like a lioness. Later this was necessary. My mother wasabsolutely the strongest, the connecting bond, in the family.

Gisela and I grew up like twins and were always dressed alike. For ayear we sat next to each other in the same school class. It was the onlytime that I carried away a 2 [on a scale of 1 to 5] in behavior—otherwiseit was always a 1—because Gisela would infect me with her bad habitsor I would not be superior to them. Gisela, blonde and strong, was myfather’s child, and I, dark-haired and slender, was my mother’s child.

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Gisela always knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. I was veryshy. After school, our ways parted.

My sister Irmi possessed a sunny nature. Sister Ilse Henneberg, nowin her late eighties, who for over forty years has been a friend of the family,can still remember very well Irmi’s “imprisonment” in the hospitalnursery and remembers our house in the Overbeckstraße. Sister Ilseworked four years in the so-called reception station and knows to thisday that Irmi lay about three months in Crib 7 (occasionally also Crib 5and 1). Irmi was brought to my parents six weeks after her birth. Myfather is said to have come seldom to the clinic.Mymothermainly visitedIrmi alone. Several times we must have been present for I can rememberthe bed behind a glass wall. The head doctor of the clinic was ProfessorBauer, who was the assistant doctor to Walter Giller [the father of theactor] for two years. Irmi was often very sick after her months in thenursery, so Dr. Bauer came to us at home. He also came if Gisela and Iwere sick.Hewas a well-loved children’s doctor. Because Professor Bauerwas a Jewish doctor, he had to leave the clinic when the Nürnberg Lawscame out. He immigrated to England where, after a short time, he diedof a broken heart.

Sister Ilse said she never heard a word of complaint frommymotherin four decades. My mother never despaired and cared lovingly for usday and night. Everything was expected to be orderly.

Irmiwas behind developmentally for her age but, in her own fashion,was extremely intelligent. We all grew up together, and you don’t noticewhen you have an ill sister. Irmi wasn’t treated as sick but healthy. Shewas nice and kind, and had amarvelous sense of humor and an incrediblehead for jokes. No one had negative feelings towards her. During theHitler years, a great fear sometimes gripped us that she might pass onpolitical jokes to the wrong people. However, she knew instinctivelywhere and when she could tell them. Often I envied Irmi her tannedcomplexion. In the summer at the ocean she became cocoa brown, andher light hair bleached almost white. Irmi couldn’t sit until she was fourand couldn’t walk until she was six. She had trouble with speaking orwith parroting back the teacher’s words, but she balanced that out withbouts of humor. In this way she was hard to describe. Sie hat alles

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mitbekommen [she took everything in]. Although she went to the sameschool as we and even the four prep years [beginning four classes of thesix in high school], she had to take each class twice. Job training was notyet available for the handicapped, so she stayed home.

My parents had persuaded us not to do anAbitur [pre-college exam].At first, we did not know the real reason. My parents said taking theAbitur served no purpose for a woman. My mother never explicitly toldme “You’re not allowed to do that because of your Jewish blood,” whichwas really the truth. Gisela participated for a while in the BDM [Naziyouth group] because she insisted on it. We didn’t realize that we couldnot be drafted into “work service” because of our Jewish blood. At myparents’ urging, Gisela worked a half-year on an estate in Pomerania. Iwent to my mother’s friend in Dreisacker in order to learn how to keephouse, a skill that I didn’t learn well then or later. For many years we hadbeen going to Dreisacker for the Pentecost holiday. Fifteen guests listedin Dreisacker’s guest book spoke about my mother’s visit before hermarriage (September 1917) and later with us three (up until 1952). Wealways had unequaled experiences with themany children of the families.Elle and Christian are still our friends today. Except for some difficultmistakes that I innocently made in the Dreisacker household, I can onlyremember that at the afternoon rest times I ran to the fields and hidmyself there. I memorized the roles of Gretchen, Iphigenie, Thekla,Hamlet, Faust, and others and recited them because life lay before me.I lived in Hamburg, the door to the world. Now it should open for me.I wanted to be in the theater.

I SOLATED

In October 1936 Gisela and I returned home. One afternoon ourmother got us together for “a meeting.” In my memory, it was horriblydark in the living room where we were supposed to sit together. Mymother disclosed that she was of Jewish background, that is, “notAryan.” My mother was baptized together with her brother at the ageof three in January 1898 in the Dutch Reformed Church in Hanauand on March 11, 1910, confirmed in Berlin. My grandmother,

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Hedwig Moral, was confirmed on February 13, 1903, in Berlin andhad declared her resignation from Judaism and her simultaneousconversion to the religious organization of the Protestant church.Grandfather Moral was a dissenter but received his “last rites” at hiscremation in 1923. However, after Hitler’s Nuremberg race laws of1935, the facts of the case didn’t count. It didn’t matter whether ornot you were baptized or confirmed. Because of the race laws, whichhad not been explained earlier to us, we could not do an Abitur, be inthe BDM or in the “work service,” and could also not take up any kindof profession that required a state exit exam. She didn’t say that we alsowere forbidden to marry. My mother told me many years later that Ihad cried. It was not common to cry in our house. I believe also that Inever again shed tears over it. The shock was too great. From oneminute to the next everything changed: There was no future, nodestination, no joy. Suddenly we were no longer Germans, andaccording to the official state version we were no longer Christian eventhough Pastor Speckmann just had confirmed us a year ago. And wehadn’t the slightest notion about Jewish culture or religion. Hence, wealso didn’t belong to that side! Before I knew what was going on, Istood by my mother, but after I knew, I think my relationship with herbecame more difficult. Perhaps I blamed her for our miserablesituation. Of course she was blameless. For young people today it ishard to imagine that at home we asked no questions. It sufficed thatindefinability hung in the air. We especially would have never askedabout Hitler’s Reich. To probe the feelings of others, especially parents,was taboo. The door to the world slammed brutally shut. There I stoodat eighteen looking into nothingness.

Yet life continued. After a long search, I found I could take coursesin stenography and typing at the business and language school. After thatI worked for a year and a half for an acquaintance of my parents in a verysmall company for agricultural machinery and products. This field wastotally uninteresting to me, but at least I earned my first income. At thistime I wrote very melancholy poems. A friendly doctor, who visited usone time, said that he had never before seen a young girl at my age thatlooked as miserable as I. To cure my unhappiness, my mother gave me

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dissolved glucose in a small bottle daily; however, I poured it out intothe Alster on my way back from work. Today I know this action was aprotest against life. I did not want to live.

In March 1939 I moved over to my father’s office. I assumed that healreadywas orderednot to hire anunknown secretary because of his “mixedmarriage.”Also, his financial situationhad tightened somuch that he couldnot pay for a worker. Therefore, I was the best solution. Someone fromthe lawyer’s chamber had suggested to him that he get a divorce. If he tookthis step, he could save himself. I know from Käthe Augstein, a distantrelative, that my father was completely desperate, but he could not or didnot want to take the steps toward a divorce. Had he divorced my mother,he certainly would have delivered her up to death. She would have beentreated as a “full Jew” then and would not have survived. Because of hermarriage to my father, she counted among those who still enjoyedprivileges. During the war, Käthe lived with us, namely from Februaryuntil the end of May 1940. She did deskwork at the airfield inBlankenese11. She toldme, among other things, that mymother remainedat home in the evenings while my father gladly went out. Käthe accompa-nied himmany times to the theater, aboutwhich I speculated in later years.After the performances they sat together with the director of the playhouse,Karl Wüstenhagen, or with the director of the Thalia Theater, ErnstLeudesdorff. Käthe found these hours very amusing.

I also did not like the office work at my father’s, although it wasnot entirely uninteresting. I had acquired such strong typing skills thatwhile I tapped out my father’s dictation, I could look out the windowand think about other things. And then I had good luck. One day,probably the beginning of 1938, I had gone by the sign “Lola RoggeSchool for Gymnastics and Dance” (at that time, on Schwanenwik 38).I enrolled in amateur classes and fell in love with dance and thepersonality of Lola Rogge so much so that I soon participated in otheractivities apart from this class. For “Faith and Beauty”—a BDM sportand cultural performance—there was a parade through the city. I foundit wonderful that we strolled in airy white clothes through the streets.Also, I soon danced in a Christmas fairy tale in the Thalia Theater. Iplayed minor roles as well in the Thalia Theater, for example, in Curt

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Goetz’s plays. [Goetz is a comic playwright.]We absolutely did not readnewspapers or listen to radio. Sometimes at films on the newsreel there’dbe “Jüden ‘raus” [Jews get out] or “Jüden sind unsere Unglück” [Jews areour misfortune]. It’s odd but I don’t recall how I felt at that time. I hadfeelings of guilt. I think as a young person you try to seek out everypossible way to be joyful and to do something interesting. For thisreason, I went to the Lola Rogge School and did what I had to at myfather’s office. I didn’t really like office work, but it was tolerable. I waspreoccupied with other matters. All day I was busy buying things andrunning errands.Whenwe didn’t have heat, I had to go to the basement.You can’t take care of yourself when so preoccupied. You could onlyjust wait and see. Like with my uncle.

In November 1938 my mother’s only brother, Helmuth, wasdenounced and sent to the concentration camp Buchenwald afterKristallnacht [“night of broken glass”]. He was a heart specialist in BadKudowa in Schlesien and had his own flourishing practice. At the endof December he surprised us in Hamburg on his way to Holland. Hehad been fired. He thought perhaps he could secure emigration toBrazil. His head was shaved. In Buchenwald he had to sign a paper thatstated he would say nothing about his internment. He remained withus for several hours.Whenmymother cried at their good-bye, my unclecomforted her: “America is still not out of the picture!” It was still atime when you could pay your way out to get to the United States. Hetelephoned for a taxi to take him to the main train station; he took mealong in order to give me a lift to the Thalia Theater. My uncle wasvery upset in the taxi, the meaning of which I really could not grasp.In August 1943—almost five years later—we received a postcard fromHolland in care of a family Rault in Driebergen, which read: “Don’tworry if you hear nothing from me in a long time.” I suppose hebelieved firmly that he would immigrate to America. His wife wasCatholic and unable to save him. It was harder when the man ratherthan the woman was Jewish. He married a Catholic and becameCatholic. He was still considered Jewish. It wasn’t the case that for all“privileged mixed marriages” it wasn’t so bad. That’s not true. In thecase of my uncle, for instance. It did depend on where you lived; for

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instance, it was easier to live in Hamburg, a big city, than Schliessien[rural south east Germany]. I strongly suspect envious doctors inSchliesien denounced him early on. It was different in a large city wheremuch goes unnoticed. In Bad Kudowa, my uncle lived in a smallcommunity. I suspect it was the other doctors—someone recognizedhim and turned him in. He was stuck in Holland for about five yearsuntil 1943. He studied military medicine. They knew in Holland thathe was Jewish. TheDutch acceptedmany Jewish immigrants. And thencame the Germans.

According to an answered request we made to the state president ofKöln in 1961, my uncle had pursued tropical medicine in Holland. Hedid not have an income there. Never again did we receive a sign of lifefrom him. They reported, “In Holland when the persecution of the Jewsbegan, the hunted were living in hiding; however on January 1, 1944,there were deportations from the camp Westerbork in Holland toAuschwitz. From there the persecuted did not come back.”

THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR

When the war broke out in 1939, all of us shared the same fate. Therewere air raid warnings and ration cards, the long, unmoving lines beforethe grocery stores, the first bombs, and the many night hours in the airraid shelter.

My mother had a “J” stamped in her passport. She had to assumethe name of “Sara.” She now received her ration card from the Jewishcommunity in Schäferskampsallee. However, she was not allowed touse the streetcars in order to get there. She was no longer allowed toattend the theater or cinema. She was also not allowed to vote. Duringair raids she had to remain upstairs in the apartment. In case of abombing, she was helpless. During the air raids we were in thebasements with neighbors. Twenty to thirty kids. The house in whichwe lived was magnificent. The husband in one of the families was aNazi. My mother was concerned about the repercussions if she wentto the cellar, so she didn’t. The application of the Nürnberg Lawsaffected her completely. There were always new humiliations. Until

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about fall 1944 she was protected because of my father—not all theparagraphs of the Nürnberg Laws against the Jews in a “privilegedmixed marriage” were put into effect.

It was impossible to go away to any country with five people andmy sister handicapped, with no money and no connections to peoplein America or England, and my father, a lawyer. And the war hadbegun, whichmade it was evenmore difficult.My parents spoke Frenchwell. If we had immigrated to France then it would have been the sameas with my uncle in Holland: eventual death. It was not possible. Myparents never thought the laws could become so heinous. It started withthe Nürnberg Laws and worsened little by little. Always a more severelaw.We didn’t see in the beginning, especially as my father was “Aryan”and a lawyer. What could happen to us? My father knew but he didn’tknow what to do with five people. He never would have immigratedalone. He had the practice and thought life would continue as before.Then came the war, and it was too late. Hitler’s book Mein Kampfstated his ideology, but who read it? Few people. My father probablyknew about the camps, but what should he do? The events wouldn’taffect him.

How dangerous our situation was is apparent in the followingexample: Paris was conquered in June 1940 by the German army andflags had to be raised. It was a magnificent summer day and we hadopened the door to the balcony. The street was a sea of flags and HeilRufe [people shouting Heil Hitler] played on the radio. My parents hadtaken out the flag but they didn’t know how to behave. Not being “pure”Germans, we were not allowed to wave a flag. However, we didn’t obey.The flag was seen by our fellow lodgers and by everyone who glanced upat our house in the Eppendorfer Landstraße. How would they react? Myparents just let the flag fly. We were lucky that nothing happened.

Every violation of the laws at that time could be punishable by workcamp. So we fell into permanent conflict. I sometimes thought, If there’sa God he wouldn’t allow us to be bombed, in addition to all theemotional torment. This belief helped now and then to stave off the fearthat had enlarged into a constant dread. We trembled at every knock onthe door, at every phone call, at every mail delivery.

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GRANDMOTHER

MyBerlin grandmother’s possessions were confiscated by the state. Shewas ordered to give up her apartment. So she moved to her son’s inBad Kudowa. She joined the Confessional Church as a baptized Jewin 1934; however, her presence in Kudowa became increasinglydangerous for her son, daughter-in-law, and also for the medicalpractice. So she came to us in Hamburg one day at the end of 1938,beginning of 1939, around the same time my uncle had been deported.She lived with us in the apartment for several weeks or months, untilmy mother disclosed to her one day that she couldn’t stay with us anylonger. Her presence had only brought our family into trouble again.I was told that she had been completely perplexed. Those affected bymy grandmother’s persecution had their hands bound. Someone wouldhave looked first for my grandmother at her daughter’s in Hamburg.What relatives, friends, or acquaintances would have wanted to orcould have hidden her? Who would we have asked to take such a risk?Certainly there were underground organizations in Berlin, but mygrandmother had no ties to them. Also, the professing church couldoffer only a limited amount of help. Besides, my grandmother probablywouldn’t have wanted to live a life in hiding. I will soon be as old asshe was then. I don’t really care to hide either.

Grandma was small, fragile, and very smart. She was a doctor’sdaughter. All of her male relatives had been doctors. Earlier she had beena member of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Choir [a famous Berlin choir]. Inmymemory, I see Grandmother knitting constantly: She was so talentedin knitting that she was an artist.We three sisters wore clothes and jacketsknitted by her, even when we were adolescents. The most beautiful giftsat Christmas always came from her. Gisela and I each received a genuineKäthe Kruse doll, “little dreamer,” a doll about the size of an infant, whenwe were about twelve. We were enormously pleased. I have a very specialmemory from a still earlier time of two small black dolls of Gisela’s andmine for whichGrandma had crocheted both a light blue and pink dress.They stood under the gargantuan Christmas tree that reached from thefloor up to the ceiling of the old frame house. Grete, our house-girl,

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remembered that my grandmother visited us often. She sometimes spentthe summer holidays with us. In Spiekeroog [an East Friesian island] shebroke her foot in the dunes. I trustedGrandma in particular. At fourteen,I wrote novels that only she was allowed to read.

FromHamburg, she moved again to Berlin to a small Pension in thesuburb Wilmersdorf that belonged to two Jewish sisters. The Nazigovernment had forced other Jews to take in their own kind. In fall 1940I visited my godmother in Berlin and then my grandmother. We hadarranged on the telephone beforehand that she would wait for me at theU-bahn train platform. On the way to the Pension, I was not allowed toaccompany her. She had told me I must go on the other side of the streetso that we wouldn’t be seen together. She wore a “Jewish yellow star,”and we could have been punished because Jews were forbidden toassociate with “Aryans.” I noted which house she entered, and shortlyafter I followed her. The picture of her small, dark, ducked figure that Ifollowed from a distance, I will never forget.

Her room on the first floor of the Pension was medium sized. On oneside near the window was a bed, and we sat at a small table. The room wasnearly empty, and no pictures hung on the wall. Next door was a smallkitchen. I don’t know anymore what we spoke about; however, I certainlytalked about Hamburg. The atmosphere was depressing.

My grandmother had tried to obtain an emigration permit throughthe department of the American Embassy in Berlin. A certificate fromMarch 22, 1941, shows that she was on the “Polish Waiting List” [sheresided on the Polish side] under the number 22829. On this paper was awarning: “Make no itineraries—examination only after many years—regulations very harsh—chances extremely small—meanwhile, unfortu-nately, inquiries cannot be regarded.” The chances for emigration wereequally nil.

Beginning in summer 1941, my mother got more packages fromBerlin.My grandmother sent her everything she owned. Either she knewalready about her imminent deportation or she suspected it. Her fur coatlay under other items: “It was always too big for me,” she wrote in a letteron October 27, “I am sending this with other things that are only in myway, but please don’t be sad over anything. I miss nothing and have,

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above all, still an abundance. The pictures that I’ll eventually send areonly in my way especially since I have everything in my heart and beforemy eyes as if the pictures were here.”

Except for this letter, I received one last card from her through mymother November 5, 1941:

My dear child! I pack in haste, therefore, have not looked

through any more papers. . . . I have nothing more in the

bank or God knows where else? Probably I’ll still send a

package. . . . I can take hardly anything with me, also no

medication, that all will be picked up. Just as all jewels,

genuine and fake, clocks, pure soap. Finally, you get the cross

necklace, so don’t cry! Someone would certainly take it away

from me in any case. It was my support in these last difficult

weeks. Little Irmi should wear it as often as possible. God

protect you all . . .

In the morning, on November 12, my mother received a telegram.I knew nothing about it and after the evening meal practiced my piano.After some time, she said she would like for me to stop playing and cometo her. My younger sister was already in bed. Gisela didn’t live at home.I see us sitting at the dining room table, my mother to the right and myfather to the left of me, when she opened the telegram. A doctor, mygrandmother’s friend, informed us of her death. His detailed reportfollowed.Mymother cried while my father seemed euphoric. Only thosewho have experienced the terrible pressure of the Nazis as if on their ownbody can understand. My father believed that now our family was saved.He was mistaken. The doctor’s telegram, among other things, containedthe following lines:

And it came as it must come. This past Saturday I spoke with

your good mother a long time and repeatedly encouraged her

to muster the strength to bear the heaviest burden. But I

knew that her decision was already made . . . in the letter I

received this morning, she had meticulously written down

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in her careful handwriting her last requests—touchingly

modest and without a mark of internal distress—and

enclosed this letter for you. Death came to her gently and

kindly. In her features lay no struggle, no bitterness, and her

hands were clasped intricately in prayer. When I saw her, she

had already been in eternal sleep for hours.

An excerpt from my grandmother’s farewell letter:

My darling children and grandchildren! I don’t want to write

you a long letter that would make me soft and make your

heart heavier afterward. Above all, I would like to say to you

how happy my life was because of your love. . . . I wish for

all of you that the Golden Age would quickly come again.

But you also shouldn’t mourn for me, because I am going,

yes, so awfully glad, to eternal rest and I hope later to see you

again in a better world. This life is no longer bearable for me,

and whoever hasn’t experienced suffering and misery,

doesn’t know what that means. . . . Don’t, in any way, mourn

for me, and you should all follow your joys as always. Read

the wonderful chapter in Gösta Berling12 about the burial of

the beloved sons. I bless you all and ask our Lord God that

he forgive me for taking my life as I have fought long and

would have gladly been a good Christian in that fight.

However, now my life must end.

My parents traveled to Berlin although this was very risky, as my motherwasn’t permitted to ride on a train. The cremation took place in theCrematorium Wilmersdorf. In a notification from there it said, “AChristian clergyman may speak.” He spoke? I don’t know. My relative,Käthe Augstein, told me some years ago that at the beginning ofNovember my grandmother’s nephew, Günther, Käthe’s husband, hadvisited her. He had gotten my grandmother the sleeping tablets. Mygrandmother had confided her plans only to him. It is said they also hadtalked about “Aunt Anna.” In my grandmother’s last postcard there is

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talk about this “aunt,” but I don’t know who she was. Aunt Anna’s sonlived in Sweden. Anna waited and waited for a permit to be allowed toleave the country to go to him. When she learned the date of herdeportation, she walked into the Wannsee. A day later her son’s eagerlyawaited answer came—too late! How terrible was the fate of eachindividual.

DOUBLE LIFE

I had trained myself to lead a proper double life—one in dream and onein reality. The dream was called Dance and Theater. These werewonderful experiences: the Lola Rogge School took part in Faust I(Walpurgisnacht) and Faust II, both productions by Karl Wüstenhagen.In Faust II, I performed along with the students of the theater school towhich I belonged in the Trojan Choir (Act 3). I also danced as a gardener(Kaiserpfalz, Act I) and “Lamie” (Walpurgisnacht). Finally, I acted as“Angel” in the Apotheoses of the captivating Triptython (Act 5), whichtook up the entire breadth of the stage. As angels, we had to staycompletely quiet for twenty minutes. The iron supports of the heavywings pressed into our shoulders. During each performance I concen-trated anew on the wonderful words that I knew by heart. For the FaustII performance we spent six hours in the theater. We rushed home withour makeup barely removed. Often we were so exhausted that we couldonly laugh. While we, Inge I., Uile O, and I, waited for the U-bahn, wesat on the steps and doubled upwith laughter. Aroundmidnight I arrivedat Eppendorfer Landstraße. Often the sirens screamed later, followed byhours in the shelter.

The reality of our daily life became more and more distressful. Myfather tried his utmost to protect his family from the worst. He tried tohave my mother declared a Mischling and not fully Jewish. I found aletter dated January 1941 sent by my father to the Hamburg criminalpolice precinct, Große Bleichen. It said, in part:

Regarding my wife, I gave the explanation that her descent

was not completely accurate because she was born in Posen,

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at that time still under Polish rule. On the basis of this

information, the state statistical office has undertaken

research because it is very important to us, not just in the

interest of our three children, to receive definitive informa-

tion. I write to you today with a similar letter sent to the

Reichsstelle für Sippenforschung [government office for

bloodline research] in Berlin. If this decision [from them]

should be unfavorable to me then I intend to make a request

on the basis of the 7th paragraph of the Reichs Citizens’ Laws

of November 14, 1935, in order to reach, if possible, an

understanding that she could at least be declared “Mischling

of the first degree” because of the special nature of this case

and of my own personal background; I am a pure Aryan of

north German descent, and a reserve officer who participated

in the war from 1914 to 1918.

The answer was negative, which meant my mother was declaredcompletely Jewish andwe children were declaredMischling ersten Grades.Additionally, a notice was sent to my father from the president of theHanseatic state court that states: “I have checked over your case on thebasis of your letter dated December 9, 1941. To my regret, I don’t seehow it’s possible to restore your name to the list of public defenders sincewe must consider that the decision process concerning your request toHans Frank will still take considerable time.”

The so-called public defender practice had the same meaning aspublic practice for a doctor. My father had only private clients availableto him, of whom there were few. After the war, in my father’s declarationunder oath, September 1, 1946 (probably to amilitary bureau), he wrote:

I was expelled from the Rechtswahrerbund [league of people

who defend rights], once called Juristenbund [league of

jurists]13 because of my “relationship,” and my right to work

as a public defender was taken away from me. Everyday, I

had to consider the possibility that I might be forced into

retiring from the legal profession. Steps in this regard, as the

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clerk at the Hanseatic state court had indicated, had already

been put into effect. In autumn 1944 because of my

“relationship,” I was supposed to be called to the death

battalions of the Todt organization as shelter worker or

something similar. My TB bracelet protected me from this

on the basis of doctor’s orders.

There was work, however, as a public defender before or afterDecember 1941. At this time, French POWs were around andmy fathergot the job because he was fluent in French. I remember this—and thiswas a great exception—becausewewere told about it at dinner.My fathersaid happily, “Today I saved the life of a Frenchman.” This POW wassupposed to be sentenced to death for pilfering potatoes. It was, as Imentioned, not common at our house to talk about politics or what myfather witnessed at work. For quite some time, children spoke at the tableonly when they were asked a question. We discussed literature, theater,and opera only when we attended student performances in the theater.“Discuss” is not the right expression. My father dished out explanations.My mother didn’t like it much because she was afraid these lectureswould adversely affect our eating.

We started to speak about unspeakable events at home. The deathof Jochen Klepper,14 the author, was a great shock to us. He, with hiswife and daughter, committed suicide. His wife was Jewish. There hadalready been another trauma before this one. My father’s friend, thepolice official Oswald L.—called Uncle Bübchen by us—was shot inpolice headquarters at a hearing. The bullet did not kill him. Herecovered and was able to immigrate to America.

Around 1938, my mother had to report to the Gestapo [secret statepolice]. For the most part, we heard nothing about it. However, one timeshe came back very agitated. Someone had “suggested” that she bring inher daughter, Irmi, for mandatory sterilization, which was part of the Nazieuthanasia program for mentally and physically disabled people, “unwor-thy of life.” She defended herself with all her strength, which succeeded atthe time only because she still was protected through my father. She livedin what Hitler called a “privileged mixed marriage.” When my mother

Ursula Bosselmann 319

indicated one time to the Gestapo that she was baptized, the “Master”answered, “When one pours water over a dog, it still remains a dog.”

Every once in a while as a family we drove into a land of dreams:Sunday afternoons when Inge Ihnken came. Her sister, Gretel, was also aLola Rogge schoolgirl. That’s how we knew each other. Like us, she alsolived on Eppendorfer Landstraße. Inge had a very pretty singing voice.After we drank coffee together she sat at our grand piano and accompaniedherself while singing. My mother seemed to forget everything. She washappy to see all her loved ones gathered together around her. Perhaps shealso thought about how she had played the violin in her parents’ house.On these Sundays, we drank a cocoa drink that you could get withoutration cards. We had to stand in line a long time, but it didn’t matterbecause it tasted fabulous.

Ingemarried onDecember 23, 1943. Inmemory of that day shewroteto me two years ago: “My husband slept at your house the night beforeour wedding because it wasn’t proper to be under the same roof with thebride. Your mother lent me her pointed veil and white shoes, a few sizestoo big, but they were bound together with a white band so they wouldn’tfall off my feet.” She explained the following event in another letter:

When I visited Rudolf in Rosenheim, 1944, I first took a

train to Halle. I changed trains there. In the first class

compartment I had a window seat and, to my horror, I sat

with all “party insignia” men, but I started right away to

immerse myself in an opera excerpt (probably I was studying

some other new section of it). I noticed that the man sitting

next to me had been staring at me for a while. Finally he said

I seemed quite familiar to him. He lived on Eppendorfer

Landstraße 42. I acted indifferent even though—because I

quickly understood the danger—my heart was beating into

my throat. “What comes now?” I thought. First I acted as if

I knew nothing, but he kept drilling me. In the meantime

all the “dear fellow travelers” were interested in both of us.

This “Stück Mensch” then said, “Don’t act like that now. On

Sunday afternoons, you always went to Mrs. B’s.” I remem-

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bered my father’s frequent warning: Never sell your character

and never deny your friends. So I said, “Yes. That’s what I

did.” “Well,” he said, “don’t you know?” “What don’t I

know?” I said. “That Mrs. B. is Jewish.” Shortness of breath.

“I know it, but I don’t perceive any difference. Also, that

doesn’t interest me.” The other gentlemen got roused up.

One warned me that every German has to be interested in

politics. All in all I must have come across as harmless because

they let me go. I remained in Halle on the same platform

while “No. 42” suddenly shouted out from the next train

platform: “If you go there again, you should take a good look

at the woman (Mrs. B.) and notice that she’s lacking Aryan

qualities.” When I told Rudolf he only said (and he was a

career officer), “We don’t have the right to win the war.”

My mother didn’t “look” Jewish, and neither did we. In connectionwith this, another “affable” occurrence followed: During the short timewhen Gisela was illegally in the BDM she was asked to be photographedfor the BDM newspaper. With her blond hair, blue eyes, and snow-whiteteeth, she was the best example of a “German girl.” This entire race theorywas grotesque. If they had known she was Mischling, we probably wouldhave been arrested. My parents were distressed until these people finallydropped the photo project.

Dancing fascinated me the more I learned and began to understandit. I definitely wanted training. The largest hurdle was my father. Notonly because I was employed at his office but also in our circles one wasallowed to be interested in the theater but not to harbor desires to go onstage. But Lola Rogge trained not only dancers but also teachers whoused dance for body development, and amateur dancing. With all thepersuasive ability I had at my disposal (and with help from my motherwho always stood by us in difficult situations), I obtained my father’spermission. Obviously, I had to continue working at his office. Frommypaternal [step-] grandfather I inherited enough money to pay for mytraining. He died at seventy-seven in 1937. I was so convinced of myplan that the thought of the exam that I wouldn’t be permitted to take

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didn’t occur to me, or else I pushed it aside. Who could predict whatwould happen in two years?

OnEaster 1943 Lola Rogge acceptedme illegally into training.Onlymany years later did I understand it—in doing so she placed her ownexistence, that of her family, and the entire school, in danger. One timeshe was confronted with an unpleasant situation. A fellow schoolmatewent to her and said, “Do you know I have to turn you in because Ursulais in the school?” Lola replied, “Then you must do it.” Afterward Lolaspent a sleepless night with her husband. The next day this sameschoolgirl burst into tears and apologized. Nothing happened.

In the early morning I went from Eppendorf to Uhlenhorst (in theAdolfstraße) then along the Alster to daily training, which couldn’t bestrenuous enough for me. When I went away from EppendorferLandstraße and into the Lola Rogge School, an iron curtain fell betweenhome and myself. It only raised itself again when I came back. Inaddition, we were in a state of great tension because of alarms, bombingattacks, reduction of food rations, questions of heating (howmuch coal),and so on. Lola Rogge recounted that I was always a pupil in a goodmood and concentrated very hard. I carried none of the problems fromhome into my training. Concentration was absolutely vital. The fascina-tion of dancing was the only possibility of survival. Also, I never askedLola Rogge any questions. The fact that I was able to participate in somany theatrical performances like others depended on the protectionthat the name Lola Rogge provided. It hadn’t occurred to any govern-ment agency to research the ancestry of the dance group participants.What a magnificent feeling it was to stand at the barre in the large ballethall with others who wanted to learn the same thing. Sometimes wereceived instruction in the garden where the hedge extended all the wayto the Alster. Middays I went home the same way. In the afternoon I satat the typewriter. This good fortune didn’t last long.

IN THE BOMBING WA R

It was summer vacation. My knees were somewhat sore from training.A “cure” would be good, the orthopedist said. What would be more

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appropriate than to go to Bad Kudowa, where my uncle’s wife still livedin the Count Gotzen House? I bathed for three weeks in mud, took longwalks, and spent evenings at Aunt Lotte’s house. My grandma was nolonger alive and we guessed that my uncle was in Holland. Whether ornot we spoke about these topics, I don’t know. On a wonderful sunnyday I sat on a bench in the spa park. From the radio came news of a heavyair attack on Hamburg. More attacks followed in the next few days.

My fear was great. Because the vacation was coming to an end, I left.The ticket was via Berlin. I lived there with my godmother. I discoveredmy sister Gisela was also in Berlin. We met each other daily. Because itwas known Berlin was the next target for attack, my godmother didn’twant to take responsibility for me and forced me to travel on. She didn’treceive any ration cards for me. Information posted at the main stationstated “No possibility of travel to Hamburg.”What should I do? I finallytelegraphed a friend ofmy father’s, themayor inWernigerode, and askedhim to take me in. The telegram never arrived, but I did. Although thehouse was fully occupied by fellow refugees, they welcomed me.

I am entirely convinced that guardian angels exist. I have come acrossthemmany times inmy life, especially at criticalmoments. Such amomentwas here in Berlin. I was in an overcrowded train and I found a place tosit. Refugees who’d fled Hamburg reported over and over: “Hamburg isburning. No stone remains on another.” Consequently I had to contendwith the thought that my parents and Irmi might not be alive. I was alive,of course, but the future was dark and unknown, if there was a future atall. In this frame of mind I sat in my narrow seat. Through the window, Isuddenly recognized a familiar figure on the train platform. I jumped upand yelled. It was Gretel Ihnken from Hamburg, the sister of Inge. Shewanted to go to Helmstedt.We were headed the same way. Not only that,but Gretel told me that she, with her parents and mine, had left Hamburgon foot after the third heavy attack, and had found refuge in their summerhouse in Poppenbüttel. I had encountered this sole witness fromHamburgin the middle of Berlin’s chaos.

From August 12 to September 11, 1943, I worked temporarily attheWernigerode city administration. When I left, I received a certificatethat said “. . . she was employed in the division of ‘support for family

Ursula Bosselmann 323

evacuation’ that takes care of financial losses of those injured by bombs,and proved herself first-rate from day one. I’m sorry to see her leave andI wish her the best for the future. The Mayor.”

My father picked me up from the Hartz. Our apartment inHamburg was still intact. Lola Rogge, who was expecting a child, hadmoved to Stade near Hamburg after the bombings. A small group ofstudents rode there each morning where we continued training in theguest house Birnbaum. In 1944 the call-up for total war operations wasdecreed. The school children had to work in the armaments factories. Iwas excluded from that and remained at my father’s. Afternoons andevenings, I taught beginners in the Lola Rogge School. The class oftenended with air raid warnings.

Around 1937 Gisela was admitted illegally into a Protestant nursingorder to study nursing, but she couldn’t get a diploma. She then couldcontinue training on Mittelweg in Dr. Burmester’s “lying-in” [mater-nity] hospital. She studied there at the beginning of the war for one totwo years. Then the Nazis took over the house and Gisela had to go. Thenew officiating doctor arranged for Gisela to go to Berlin to work for hiscolleague in a private clinic. This clinic was bombed out, so Gisela cameback to Hamburg and took over weekly duties at the homes ofacquaintance and friend’s who were expecting babies.

In October 1944 our house seamstress, Frau Becker, sat in one ofthe back rooms of the apartment at her sewing machine. Frau Becker’smother, Frau Sorgenfrei, had been our seamstress formerly. When shebecame too old, her daughter took over. Frau Becker had been comingto us for at least fifteen years. Earlier she had sewn all of our clothes—school clothes and so-called dress clothes worn at dance school andformal balls. There was nothing more to sew but much to mend. FrauBecker had become a friend. Later she and her husband lived with us fora while after they were bombed out.

After drinking coffee one afternoon I wanted to demonstrate amovement from a dance so I cleared away the chairs on one side of theroom. I had already changed clothes to dance when the bell rang. At thedoor stood an SS [chief police agency] man who wanted to speak with mymother and inspect the apartment. When he set foot in the living room

324 DIVIDED LIVES

that now functioned as my dance space, he became irritated. He found itunheard of that we still possessed such beautiful rooms—genuine carpets,oil paintings, and the Bechstein piano. With my mother he also inspectedthe back rooms and detected Frau Becker at the sewing machine. Herebuked her: “You should know that you are not permitted to work for a‘Jewess.’” My mother, in order to protect Frau Becker, said, “Not true.Frau Becker knew nothing about me!”With that, the SS man screamed atmy mother, enraged: “You will hear from me!” The door slammed shut.Horror paralyzed us. We stood petrified like stone. Naturally I didn’t feellike dancing anymore, but my mother didn’t want to rise to the panic, soshe implored me to stick to the program. I performed the dance.

HowChristmas time and the beginning of the year 1944-45 looked,I don’t know. Probably my parents tried to make the best of it. ButDamokles’ sword15 hung directly over our heads.

MOTHER ’S DEPORTATION

On a Friday morning around 8:00 A.M. I fainted in the bathroom.There was no predictable reason for it. Never before and never again inmylife did it happen tome. I believe I called out. In any casemymother caughtme. I could hear her yell to Irmi for help to carry me to bed. Around 10:00a postal message came for my mother. But only in the afternoon around4:00 did she informme about it. It was her “summons” to the work camp.Maybe subconsciously I had anticipated this in the morning when Ifainted. OnWednesday, February 14, 1945, she was ordered to appear atthe main train station with backpack and blanket. What did “work camp”mean? I couldn’t imagine it. Inge Ihnken told me: “Irmi came to us at thattime with this letter. Your father was at a meeting in Bremen. In theafternoon he came to our house. He was chalk white. He said tomy father:‘In this case, we have to take precautions. We are coming to an end!’ Myfather fiercely contradicted: ‘By nomeans—the war will be over soon. TheNazis will not be at the helm much longer. Your wife is coming back!’”Inge maintained that my father went away less crestfallen.

I lay on the couch at home incapable of standing up. I don’t knowwhat we thought or said. Nobody cried. If it was possible to feel, the

Ursula Bosselmann 325

feeling was fear. On Saturday morning my mother sat on the edge of mybed. She told me I had “blacked out.” I was sick. Really strange: “Wewant to conclude things tonight,” she said. “For your sake I’ll go. Bothof you [Ursula and Gisela] will probably come through, but not Irmi.”The Nazis would immediately put her in an euthanasia program.16 Wealso, really, did not come through. My mother didn’t foresee that at thetime. Later on they not only tormented the Jewish families but also themixed. Every night we slept in a different place. This wouldn’t have beensufficient had it lasted a few months more. We would also have beendeported as “half-breeds of the first degree.” I couldn’t react. My sisterGisela, who was taking care of her friend Irene and her baby, arrived.She packed the backpack with my mother. As I learned later, my mothersewed a tablet of Zyankali (poison) in her coat. In the early afternoon ofthe fourteenth, my father, mother, and Gisela left by way of the backstairs. Irmi and I remained home. A friend of my mother’s was there.Time seemed endless to me until my father andGisela returned. I believeI had assumed fervently that my mother would also be with them. Myfather, very horrified, informed me that the name “Theresienstadt” wasvisible on the train’s side. Mother was taken to Theresienstadt.17 It wasinsanity. He knew what Theresienstadt meant. We didn’t. He knew itwas a concentration camp, not a labor camp. The term “labor” was justa camouflage. Above the entrance was a sign “Labor Camp.” He nevertalked about it. He thought we should be protected. Then he said mymother had gone once again to the SS man who had been in ourapartment and she said he certainly should leave her in Hamburg as shehas three children. His answer to her was: “You have been so impudent.You go along.”

LAST MONTHS OF THE WAR

I couldn’t get back on my feet. Through my father’s doctor friend, I got abed in the hospital. Next to me lay an amusing patient. Was she given theassignment to cheer me up? She always possessed a bottle of red winehidden under her bed. At night I was granted a glass. Except for a hightemperature, I lacked nothing. It’s just that I was so weak that only with

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incredible effort could I get to the bomb shelter. We experienced variousattacks. One time a woman gave birth behind a small curtain. After threeweeks I was released because the bed was needed. From the doctor I got afew Pervitin, a stimulant, so that I could walk and carrymy suitcase. I wentfor a week to the Baltic coast. On the way low-flying planes shot at thetrain.We looked along the slope for needed cover.When we climbed backin I couldn’t find the compartmentwithmy suitcase. At each of the stationsalong the way I climbed in and out of compartments looking for my case.What was I supposed to do without my things? Right before Lübeck, Ifound my “gute Stück” [my trusty suitcase].

Along the coast I was able to take walks. In my memory the sky andthe sea remained disconsolately gray. Having returned to Hamburg, Icould see how Gisela worked so hard to take care of everyday concerns.For example, the gas pressure was so bad that she set the alarm for 5:00A.M. so that the coffee water would be boiling at eight. I told her, “I willnow relieve you so you can sleep longer.” This way my strength cameback. From my father’s aforementioned declaration under oath fromSeptember 1, 1946, I read: “. . . in the last weeks before the collapse ofthe Nazi government it became the policy that the Gestapo went outhunting for ‘mixed race’ people. In order to escape, my daughters had tohide for a while, and spent the night at their friends’ houses.”

One evening around midnight when Gisela and Irmi had left and Istayed in my father’s house, the doorbell rang. I pondered whether ornot I should save myself by running onto the balcony. But someonewould notice that I had just left the bed because it was unmade. The nextthought: “Should I jump from the balcony?” Soon I realized that whoeverwas at the door didn’t want to get into my place, but rather into theapartment of the subtenant, Herr Bruno Schmidt, below me.

The events of the Kriegsschauplatz (theater of war) followed inrapid succession. Our fate was a race with death. How we experiencedthe collapse of Germany, I can’t really say. On the one hand, it wasexciting and liberating, but on the other hand, we didn’t know the fateof our mother. Once again, we were human beings like all the others(after twelve years!) but we could only take this in very slowly. Therewas no celebration.

Ursula Bosselmann 327

MOTHER ’S RETURN HOME

We slept without air raid alarms. In the evenings there was a curfew. Weconstantly ran into difficulties taking care of daily needs. My father losta lot of weight and spent time running around. He arranged things withthe military bureau and probably also with the attorneys’ association. Helearned very quickly that the Jewish couple who was forcibly quarteredin our house (while my mother had to go to the camp) moved into theapartment that they’d earlier owned.My fatherwas in touchwith familiesof people who had been deported with my mother. At the beginning ofJune there was hope that the inmates would return from Theresienstadt.Gisela baked a cake, but the transport was cancelled. On June thirtiethmymother called.My dadwent to the phone. The transport would arriveat the Eppendorfer train station.Wewent. They came in an open truck—all with the Jewish star on their coats (presumably as protection this timefor the trip through chaotic Germany). In my memory, greetings withthe transportees were short.Mrs. K., who was picked up by her daughter,cried out because she learned that her husband had died in a bombingattack. Each had only one wish: to go home as quickly as possible.

My mother had lost twenty pounds. She told us next to nothing.We didn’t ask any questions. Gisela prepared a bath. We drank coffee.The next day, my mother took over the household care. I loved mymother much more than my father. When you’re a young girl you thinkall difficulties come from your mother, and you blame your mother forhaving the Jewish background. I was ambivalent. It was more than dasist Blut—deeper than just a “dumb” situation. Gisela, years later,criticized our mother for not telling us anything, although not angrily.Mother never talked about the camps. Today I ask myself about that.We did ask her questions and got abrupt answers. She’d change thesubject and say something like “Where do you need to go?” Then I neverasked again. Maybe she told Gisela more. Because I left in 1947, I didn’thave the opportunity. When she visited me in England, I didn’t askbecause so many years had passed. She gave short answers. She mighthave said, “Better to forget it.” I was not that interested in knowingdetails. I thought it was better to suppress the past. Forty years later I

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wrote down her story. Perhaps I had sometimes thought, “If my parentsdivorced it might be easier.” I don’t know what I thought. [She slaps herlegs.] Without my mother at home, it would have been horrible.

Gisela soon attended evening school in order to complete her highschool studies. Later she began to study medicine but soon married andgave it up. I reacted to all the upsetting events with a case of shingles. Infall, the Lola Rogge School began again with training. I could finallycontinue, officially.

In January 1946 I passed my pedagogy exam. My study of childrenfor this exam was called “How the Little Angel Seeks His Mother,”18

after the same title as the children’s book. With forty children I hadstudied the dance. Rehearsals took place under severe conditions. Theballet hall wasn’t heated, and the children had to dance barefoot. Theyoungest performer, “the little angel” was three years old. For the test,the examination panel had covered themselves in thick blankets. In 1947I passed the dance exam with “God and the Bajadere,” named after theGoethe poem. I had music composed according to my specifications. Ipassed the exam with distinction.

Gradually, my mother reported a few things about her transport.On February 14, 1945, the train had stood for twenty-four hours on aside track of Hamburg’s main station. The severely cold weather hadcaused technical difficulties so it couldn’t depart. On one of the firstnights, my mother actually fell when falling asleep and struck an ironoven in the car. A veterinarian, who was among the deportees, boundthe wound. During the journey they saw Dresden burning in the last legof the war. The trip lasted nine days. Again and again the train stoodsomewhere on a station’s siding. After she arrived in Theresienstadt, mymother’s head wound was stitched without local anesthesia. Her onlycommentary was: “All the things we endured!” Because of the accidentshe had, my mother was the only one who was allowed to take a bath.She said, “The blankets (which she was allowed to take with thebackpack) were our salvation.” In my father’s aforementioned declara-tion under oath, it states: “In this place [Theresienstadt], theywere placedunder a daily threat to body and life because of the degrading and hardwork, and the bad food and lodging. At the beginning of May 1945,

Ursula Bosselmann 329

after Theresienstadt had been freed by the Russians from the Nazis’oppressive government, the concentration camp inmates had to stay afew weeks because of spot typhus.”

Mymother described how they had been brought in groups of six intoa room. Compared to some others that was preferential treatment. Fivewomen from Hamburg and a “little farmer,” a woman from Kiel, livedtogether. Every year she met with this group of five women who were withher in the camp. Later this group met for many years every February 14that my mother’s house in Eppendorferlandstraße. She maintained contactwith this small circle. She invited them every February to her home.Manyexperiences were collected in one room. Today it’s incomprehensible. OnJune 23, 1945, my mother baked a rhubarb cake in the liberatedTheresienstadt for the woman from Kiel. That was mentioned every yearfor forty years.Mymothermet the sister of hermother, “Aunt Trudchen,”in Theresienstadt. She had been deported a year earlier from Elbing. Thisreunion must have been harrowing. Every midday, my mother broughther aunt a portion of her own ration.19

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

My father was a well-liked Hamburg lawyer before 1938. His practicedid very well and he had many friends. But from 1938 on, his activitydecreased. Because of this, the financial situation of the family becameincreasingly strenuous. I never wanted to recognize my father as a father.As children, we hardly saw him because until 1938 he was working inhis practice in the city and only came home in the evenings. We thenwent to bed.During summer vacationswe traveled onlywith ourmother.My father felt shame because I had to work with him. But it wasn’t hisfault at all. Perhaps unconsciously I rejected the “Aryan” in him, the onewho remained “unsheared.” But he didn’t remain “unsheared.” That’sexactly what I didn’t see—that already before 1945 he was a brokenman.His reason for existence—the law practice—was destroyed. He didn’thave the strength to build up his practice again. After the war he couldn’twork again successfully. Refugee lawyers from the East [11 millionGermans] who had settled in Hamburg could work simultaneously as

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notaries. In the East they were tested as both lawyers and notaries. Thenotaries found work more quickly and were needed more often. TheHamburger lawyers, on the other hand, were either lawyers or notaries.My father couldn’t obtain a passport and the small number of clients hehad weren’t enough to support a family. We had a larger apartment forthe practice, which we separated into parts. We had a nice neighbor whomoved in and mentioned to me that she was able to move in because shemade three rental payments for my father. This was 1950. My motherwas insured. My father didn’t have any insurance. He couldn’t rebuildhis life. My father had few sources of revenue. I have a letter from August26, 1945, that reads as follows:

Dear Colleague. In my personal case of emergency in which

I had written on July 22 this year to the Hanseatic chamber

of lawyers, I take the liberty now with the close of this month

to come back to this matter and to ask you whether I can

work out a monthly subsidy of DM 150 to be paid to me

from now on. My suffering has in no way improved, and my

economic position is worse than ever. I have striven in the

meantime to find a colleague who perhaps would be prepared

to practice his profession in my office with me. However, all

attempts up to now have miscarried.

I also have before me more of my father’s letters, one from April 18,1950, to the social welfare office: “. . . My economic relationships, as it’sbeen shown, have turned out so catastrophic that my spouse has had toseek compensation as a prison inmate.” There is also a “distress resolu-tion” from 1955. The pledge, of course, could be cancelled (as far as Ican tell). We got an Auszahlung [payoff]. Altogether, it took eleven yearsuntil my mother received compensation, herWiedergutmachung, repara-tions, in the form of a pension. That was very good. It was no fabulouspayoff; we had to give it away immediately because we were in debt. Mymother got a pension and it increased. It wasn’t much but it grew. Myfather left nothing behind, just debts. It lasted four horrible years. I wasworking. I couldn’t help mymother. It wasn’t enough. In the meantime,

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my parents took in a sister of my grandmother’s who had survived inBrazil. Other rooms were sublet. Finally, my parents sold the grandpiano, one or two paintings, the last of my mother’s jewelry, and theremaining silver.

A few days before he was taken to the hospital, my father’s last wordsto my mother were: “How good that you now got the money foryourself.” He died on February 24, 1957, without leaving a pennybehind. A minister of the Johannes Church in Eppendorf had comeacross my father in the empty church one time shortly before his death.When the minister asked, “What are you doing here?” my father is saidto have answered, “I am seeking peace.”

In spring 1986 I traveled to Israel with a tourist group. We visitedthe Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and the large concentration campmemorial. In the “Room of Names” I discovered the name of my uncle,Dr. Helmuth Moral, in a register of the deported Jewish people fromHolland. This clarified definitively that he had been murdered inAuschwitz. I was thunderstruck. I picked up the precise dates frominformation that I obtained from the International Search Service inArolsen: On January 12, 1944 (he lived almost five years in Hollandin the underground and had waited in vain for the journey to America),he was dispatched to the concentration camp Westerbork in Hollandand on March 3, 1944, was deported from there to Auschwitz(probably by way of Theresienstadt). He was considered dead on July31, 1944.

Myuncle had forwarded his entiremedical practice (thirty cases withvery valuable contents) before leaving Germany to Holland. These casesarrived then disappeared in a mysterious way. The reestablishing ofcontact to a Holland family whose address my father had discoveredprovided no sort of information. In many places, with the end of thewar, a great silence and a keeping of secrets prevailed.

My sister Irmi died in 1969 frommuscle deterioration. The last halfof the year my mother pushed her in a wheelchair. Gisela took her lifein 1971 after a harsh skin disease. It had nothing to do with the Nazitime. She was fifty. She was just sick. She started to study medicine andshe wrote about her illness—that it was hopeless. [She sighs.] I witnessed

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her illness. What should one think or say? I could understand it [hersuicide]. What do you do if you have a disease and read about it andknow it will end in death anyway? She was sick about two years. She wasborn in 1920. Her husband married again. He doesn’t call much at all.My mother was alive then. I was in Hamburg at that time, for a shorttime. Gisela had Pemphigus vulgaris, when the skin is detached from itsbasic layers. Bubbles are in between and infected. She had it in the throatand mouth, in all cavities of the body. Bubbles on her cheeks. They didnot diagnose her early enough. It took a long time until they did. Theyreleased her from the hospital, and she read about it. She was marriedand had her own family, and I wasn’t in Hamburg so we’d lost contact.It was hard for my mother—two children dying before her own death.It must have been very hard. My mother refused to take poison becauseof Irmi. Now she had to deal with her daughter doing what she didn’tdo earlier, which would have left her children alone.

Out of Gisela’s marriage came a son and daughter. He is marriedand lives in Moscow, actually Estonia in Tallinn [the capital of Estonia].He married a Russian and they both went to Estonia. At eighty-five, mymother flew with me to Moscow to see her grandson. I don’t know mynephew well in Estonia; they’re too far away and he doesn’t have muchinterest in me. Since my mother died we’re not as close. Until 1985 thefamily held together—even with the new daughter-in-law. My motherheld it all together. Gisela’s daughter, Andrea Craft, lives in Hamburg;she is in the Jewish community. My niece tried to get more informationout of mymother but she couldn’t get much. She’s difficult in every way.Not really in trouble, she just doesn’t communicate, doesn’t stick withany job. Her dad gave her an apartment as a gift so she can live. Shedoesn’t have a relationship with her brother and father. Andrea has askedme questions but I tell her to read what I’ve written. [She laughs.]Naturally she’s asked me questions. But I also can’t say much. I can tellyou what I think as a theologian about all these women who took theirlives, all these things that weren’t spoken about. What should I say? Self-murder is not punishable. It’s not possible that a God would punish aperson who is punished. The idea that those who commit suicide won’tget a place in the cemetery is passé. I think people who suffer so much

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shouldn’t be punished. How can another person be an authority judginganother’s life? No one should argue about a suicide’s life. Perhaps Istudied religion because of the Hitler era, to understand something.

My mother was granted and lived out many fulfilling years. Afterthe war she enjoyed life immensely, now that it was normal. After myfather died and Irmi died, she visited me in all those countries andrelished it. While I was living abroad for sixteen years she visited meeverywhere. She really didn’t want others to speak about the Nazi regimeand her time in Theresienstadt. She was not embittered and nevercomplained. Up until her last days she remained constantly busy doingthings for others.With amind that hadn’t clouded over, she died in 1985shortly before her ninety-first birthday.

From 1946 to 1949 I was involved in the small city theaters in Essen.I always visited home, but then Gisela married. Our relationship wasn’tas close.Of course, when I came home for visits, everythingwas beautiful.I never talked with my father after the war because I was only homeoccasionally. It certainly seems strange to others that we never discussedsuch things. I had two accidents at work, once going out of the theaterand once during rehearsal. I broke my right foot each time. I had to stopdancing. I began soul-searching the second time I broke my foot. Ithought it was the way it should be, and I needed to stop. I had intensecontact with a church community in Essen. I was eating meals with avery devout family. The son was a theology student with whom I spenttime. Internal and external concerns eventually drove me to step out ofmy profession and allowed me to study in a theological seminary inWuppertal-Elberfeld in Rhineland, and to work as parish helper inLeverkusen. It wasn’t possible to take all the exams in theology and dance.Sometimes I danced for a birthday party and, in Sweden, for a wedding.It was a real break between two differing paths.

In 1956 the “Gateway to theWorld”20 opened for me, although notin Hamburg. The Foreign Relations Bureau of the Protestant Church inGermany dispatched me for six years to Boras, Sweden, then for twoyears to Lisbon, Portugal, and finally for another three years to Leeds,England. Gisela spent two years with her family in Sweden. I had alreadybeen there and helped my sister move. I understood Swedish but she did

334 DIVIDED LIVES

not. After eleven years of foreign experience I came back to Hamburg,lived inMission Academy, and studied theology for four semesters at theuniversitywhere I gotmydiploma. I’m a diploma theologian.Once againin the Rhine church I was ordained and was sent out again by the church“outreach” as pastor of theGerman congregation inManchester (six-yearcontract). I worked with the church and often was sent out to variousplaces—six years in Portugal, three years in England, and later six yearsagain in England. [Switches fromGerman to English.]My English is notgood. I was always in aGerman community andwe always spokeGermanexcept when we were shopping. I gave seminars in English, but not witha discussion afterward. But when I did baptisms, I spoke English.[Switches back to German.] I could talk ad nauseum about my sixteenyears away and about the time in Germany (the last six years as hospitalchaplain in Wiesbaden), but that doesn’t belong in this context. Afterthirty-five years in church service, I have now come back—through thelarge “Gateway to the World”—to Hamburg.

I wanted to be out of Germany. It wasn’t very conscious, ratherunconscious, that I went to several other countries. I wanted to stay inSweden and then many times I thought I’d like to stay in England.[Switches to English.] I didn’t realize it was like an emigration—an inneremigration. I think I know it now but I didn’t at that time. [Switchesback to German.] This foreign ministry didn’t like it when their peoplewent away and stayed away. They were peeved when a German pastorsaid, “I’ll stay in this other country.” They wanted them back with allthey had learned to live here and teach others. They didn’t say, “Youdefinitely can’t do that,” but said they’d offer something else to me.

I can’t really say with what or whom I identify. I’m German andChristian. What I really am, I don’t know. Ich wäre lieber kein Deutscher.I would prefer not to be German. [She repeats this twice.] If the neo-Nazis get even stronger, I won’t stay. Now that they are strong, I wonderif I should go to another country. Yet German is my own language. Imean, no one can 100 percent adopt a new language and culture. Not100 percent. Ah, I love Faust and Goethe. I have always been homeless.I’ve never been truly here when I gladly was in other countries. Andwhen

Ursula Bosselmann 335

I would stay in other countries, then I wasn’t 100 percent. There wereproblems with Germans whom I got to know in Sweden, Portugal, andEngland. I always had work to do with Germans in foreign countries,and I saw how hard it was when they suddenly became old and alone,and had lived for forty or fifty years in England and were in a hospitaland could no longer seem to understand English and no one aroundspoke German. They reverted to German because English was an“inherited” language. A strange idea. I saw all that. It’s hard to live in adifferent land, to emigrate. You are never 100 percent. I closed the circleby going back to Hamburg. When I lived in Wiesbaden, I thought I’dlive there forever. One day I called Lola Rogge, and she asked me whenwas I coming back for good and not just for vacation. And a spark wentoff in my brain. My mother was no longer alive; she died in 1985. Inspite of that, I had a feeling I needed to return to Hamburg. Strange tosay, I found an apartment quickly. Very strange. It was near the GertrudChurch where I was confirmed and near where we’d lived in Overbeck-straße. The circle was closing. But the thoughts never go away. In anykind of political difficulty, I think about old times and just want to leave,take a flight to Sweden or England. It always comes back. I’m more leftpolitically but not active. I do vote Social Democratic. I don’t like Kohl,the chancellor. There are lots of political mistakes. My niece, Andrea, ispolitical. My dad was considered intellectual. It was a generation whenwomen didn’t have a profession. I never married. As a woman, I had nodifficulty. I do what I like. In the communities where I worked youcouldn’t do what you wanted all the time. It’s a profession in which youget much criticism. I really can’t answer the question about my role as awoman. I talked to students when I was at the university. I can’tunderstand how today young people want to get married, have kids, anda career. It would be impossible for me. Something will suffer. It’s notin your power to do it all.

Earlier I felt like an outsider. I was silent. Whenever people talkedabout the war or what happened, I said nothing. I tried to be friendlyand agreeable to others, say “yes.” Today I don’t feel like an outsider. Idon’t talk to people who thought the Nazi time was good. It is terrible

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when someone says, “He [Hitler] did great things—he built the high-ways.” I can’t bear to hear it. I wouldn’t talk about my difficulties. Theschool friendships ended. Also the ones in the dance school. Then Istudied theology. I had trouble sustaining contact when Imoved around.I kept in touch with Lola Rogge. Even in the congregations outsideGermany no one talked about it. In Lisbon there were émigrés who nevermentioned it. People who were directly affected by it remain silent or,in any event, did so for a long time. All the books about the Third Reichwere written forty years later. I’ve read a lot about it. When theHolocaustfilm came out in the late 1970s I began to comprehend what hadhappened. After fifty years, the remembrance ceremonies are too much.[Switches to English.] Again and again. All these terrible things to hearagain and again. Sometimes I couldn’t watch it or read it. [Switches toGerman]. Up until the 1970s, it was not possible for me to talk aboutexperiences of the Nazi era.

Approximately 1974, I read The Inability to Mourn by AlexanderandMargarete Mitscherlich, a book that greatly impressed me. I saw thebook in a book announcement, so I ordered it, read it, and found it somarvelous that I thought I must talk to this woman. I had to go to her inFrankfurt. When I visited Frankfurt from England for Kirchentag21 in1975 Imade an appointment withDr.MargareteMitscherlich. She said,“There’s also good people in England. Do you know anyone there?” Isaid, “No. I’ll come back after a day.” I flew twice or three times fromEngland to Wiesbaden near Frankfurt. I could take the train. For overten years this woman accompanied me in her loving way and withunending patience as I tried tomake sense of my past. I have her to thankthat I can now speak and write about the events of the years 1933 to1945. I’ve written down my ideas through analysis with the Mitscherli-chs. It’s my opinion today that we—the witnesses—must speak. Aboveall, the youth should hear about what they didn’t experience. I can onlythink that the Nazis wanted us to keep it secret. That was the idea.Children must keep secrets above all. I heard from my generation—thatit was understood and also true in their families—about this not speakingand not asking. So, some understand in our generation that it wasn’tproper. It would have been better for me if we had talked about it. I

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think, on the other side, we were somewhat a little bit too carefree.WhatI did not know wasn’t a hot topic for me. I don’t know if I could havegone to the Lola Rogge School if I had known it meant danger for her.I was just trying to be carefree. I didn’t know any better.

I was in psychoanalysis from 1977 to 1987. It was only one time perweek with long vacations in between. She did many lectures in othercities and was often away. Ten years sounds like an enormous time, butthe therapy wasn’t constant. We always had solutions to clarify. Wetalked about this entire Hitler time. It was hard work to write it downbecause nobody in our family talked about it. It was hard to finddocuments and to make a logical story out of it. I found dates in papersand reparation documents when my grandmother had left the Jewishreligion and was baptized. I had to put effort into figuring out the dates.I stopped therapy when I came to Hamburg in 1987. It’s very expensive.But healthcare takes care of these things—for psychiatrists but notpsychologists. Mitscherlich was a fine woman—very patient, and alwayslistened. I had a very good relationship with her. She was very loving inour sessions; otherwise, I had absolutely no contact with her. That’s her[points to a picture, then gets up and brings it over]. She is Danish, orhalf Danish. Her husband is no longer alive. I happily went to see herevery week and gladly paid the fees; it was so positive for me to talk tosomeone about the past. It was the first time I’d talked about it to anyone.In America it’s entirely normal to go to therapy. If you break your footyou also go to the doctor or for your teeth you go. And so it should befor mental sickness—not just if you’re crazy. I don’t think I’m asimbalanced now.

I hadmigraines for thirty-five years. I looked everywhere in Englandto get free from migraines. Nothing helped. I pursued all possibilities inEngland—Urschrei (primal scream) therapy and rebirth, many things.Nothing helped. Then I read this book [Inability to Mourn] and I said Imust seek this out. Mitscherlich said, “It’s already sunken into you.Naturally it is a sickness and it’s okay that you feel unable to talk aboutit.” She couldn’t promise rectification. Nevertheless, it turned out well.It had to do with the repression. I very seldom have headaches now. Thetherapy was a mix. Mitscherlich asked questions and I answered, more

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or less. She brought up a point and I had to associate with it and go withit, similar to Freudian analysis especially when I talked about my dreams,which brought me to talk about the past. I worked with dreams a lot.Why do you act in a certain way right now? It must be associated withyour past. I didn’t write a diary—no time—and I was stressed in myprofession. I talked about everything with Mitscherlich, about how Irmiwas difficult on the marriage, but they didn’t talk about that. Mymothersaid once, “Everything that was difficult I had to survive myself.” WithIrmi, with her mother, her brother. My mother in Theresienstadt alone.Always she alone. You can’t grasp that my own father took my motherto the train station for deportation. What could he have done? Shouldhe have left her alone? Hide her? We didn’t know where to hide her. ForGiordano, maybe.22 For us, hiding wasn’t possible. The war hadprogressed and somy father thought it couldn’t last that long.Mymotherwas deported late, thank God.

Mitscherlich also had victims of the war coming to her, not formerNazis. I am still nervous that people are alive who were a part of the ThirdReich. I feel creepy that many lawyers came through it and again securedhigh positions. Who was the judge who gave out death sentences? Themain judge in Berlin? I heard about it afterward. The wife got a goldenpension because her husband was a judge. He had pronounced deathsentences. That angeredme! I also wrote inmy book about an SSmanwholived in our apartment building. Once he moved in, things were awful.Later I askedmymother what became of this man. She said she’d met himout shopping. I thought, It can’t be true. He should be dead. I’d like toshoot him. My mother said—also impossible to believe—that Jewishpeople who weren’t sent away gave himmoney to bribe him. So now theywon’t mention his name. Twenty or thirty years later I found this out.Then there were those Nazis who went to Latin America—Himmler orHess or Eichmann? Eichmann. The Germans didn’t care about it.

Hitler and the government naturally horrified my father. We wereall against Hitler, but we were always between mother and father,between Nazi Germany and resistance. We were always in between. Toa young person, none of this is understandable. I think more passiveresistance was offered than we realize. The ones who in fact staged

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resistance were killed. In addition, we must always remember thatopposition in a democracy is not the same resistance as in a dictatorship.For resistance in a democracy, courage isn’t a prerequisite. Resistance ina dictatorship is a matter of life and death. Today we’re saturated withnews and reports, and it wasn’t that way then.

Before Hitler, I had absolutely no knowledge of Jewish religion. Ifsomeone had said “schabbot” I wouldn’t have known what it was. Mygrandmother hadbeenbaptized,whichwas our break from Judaism. Later,as a theology student, I was interested in the Old Testament more so thanthe New. I gave many sermons about the Old Testament. I had difficultywith Christology [idea of Christ] but I wouldn’t change. Gisela’s daughteris now in the Jewish community returning to our roots—I think more forpolitical than religious reasons. She is against the Nazis—even though shewas born after the war—and everything related to it. The Jewish traditionis too foreign to me but fascinating. I’m in the Jewish-Christian Societythat holds dialogues between the religions. I couldn’t be Jewish in thattradition. My mother wasn’t into it, but when I began to study theologyafter the war, she became interested. She took a Bible to Theresienstadt.But I never asked her why. [Says next sentence in English]: My father wasnearly nothing—nothing in that way. He was a good lawyer but not intoreligion. I also didn’t know as much about law. I never was into being alawyer, but now I’m interested in documentaries on television if they arerelated to court. In the 1950s and 1960s, no one asked any questions aboutthe German past. The congregations outside of Germany and the individ-uals in the congregations had completely different problems. Even formyself, thepast had entirely disappeared. In the1970s inEngland,Germanwomen made occasional references to the past because in England therewere war films and the Germans in the films were often portrayednegatively, which made people angry. One could often hear comments:“The POWs in Germany had it very good.” I never got involved in thediscussion. I had negative experiences with the few friends to whom I’ddisclosedmypast. I then regretted that I’d brokenmy silence andwithdrewinternally even further.

In the 1980s many things changed in the Federal Republic. Ontelevision therewere discussions and reports from contemporarywitnesses;

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there were films about the time from 1933 to 1945; there was a flood ofliterature and the so-called historian’s dispute [Historikerstreit]. A part ofthe student body is very interested. For others this time is an epoch overwhich it’s not worth occupying your mind. To this very day, the dialoguewith my own generation is the most difficult. There are many attempts atjustification and very unrealistic thinking. People like to put it out of theirminds—that the Germans began the war and we have to accept theconsequences. Regarding the Jewish destruction, people say, “Oh, that wassuch a long time ago.” Today I can respond to that.

I have had many thoughts about and have continually looked for thefactors that made the happenings in the Third Reich possible, that createdthis race obsession and xenophobia. I came to one of these conclusions: Ifonly it were possible for parents to sense and direct their children’saggression and guide them in correct behavior, then it would not benecessary for these children later in life to form images of an enemy in orderto carry out the struggle externally that fundamentally occurs internally.

Just as important: If parents understand the disorderly impulses oftheir children so as to guide them in a proper way, then these childrenmust not unrestrainedly relinquish their impulses, so that later they willnot be enraged and strike at random. Those who seek an external enemywill always find one. The recognition begins with ourselves. No one hasdone anything to determine whether his body color is back or white, orthat hewas born into one or the other country, culture, or religion.We’vedone nothing to determine our skin color or place. In the same way, weneed to recognize that good and evil are not found only in the externalworld but also within ourselves—all of us have negative aspects that arebrought out, for example, by jealousy and envy. Already the first pagesof the Bible, Genesis 4:8, tell about a fratricide and in Genesis 8:21, itsays: “. . . the statements and strivings of the human heart are evil fromyouth on.” Wherever ideology and fanaticism form an alliance—as inHitler’s time—all of the evil elements in a human being come forth outof the depths and corrupt the human being into acts of brutality andcontempt for humanity.

I am sometimes asked if I can forget and forgive. I think forgettingis impossible but I can accept thewaymy life’s turned out and it definitely

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was a very rich life. Forgiving, I would say, is not permitted to us, thesurvivors, because we “came out of it.” I would like to ask mygrandmother and uncle. We all would have to ask the millions of thosemurdered for an answer to that. But they are silent.

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NOTES

PART I : THE SPIRIT

1. See Frank Bajohr, “Arisierung” in Hamburg. Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer1933-45 (Hamburg: Christians Verlag, 1997). Bajohr analyzed hundreds of files andcame to the conclusion that 1,500 Jewish businesses in Hamburg had to be sold underpressure. This process of exploitation has been well documented for Hamburg. MostJewish businesses in other cities were “Aryanized” as well, since it was a nationwide law.

2. My great grandfather, Senator Carl Johann Cohn (1857-1931), decided to locate hisbusiness in Hamburg because that is where he had the most contacts, an obvious choicefor him since he had apprenticed in the African trade with the Lippert firm and neededa big port city for his headquarters. He and Oscar Arndt founded Arndt and Cohn in1883. When his father, August Cohn, died in 1893, his widow, Charlotte Cohn, néeHahn, moved to Hamburg with her unmarried daughter, Clara. They lived together ina home in the Hagedorn Strasse until Charlotte’s death in 1924. Clara, a distinguishedand intelligent woman, is said to be the only one of the family who could have perishedin the Holocaust, not in a camp, but in a crowded retirement home where she wasmuch neglected.

3. The actual decree prohibiting Jewish doctors from practicing medicine was July 25,1938. As early as April 1933, non-Aryan doctors were not permitted to have patientswho had public insurance. They could treat only people who had private insurance.These patients usually had more money. According to this law, my grandfather couldno longer treat worker patients, although it is likely that he continued to do so.

4. The events conducted in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland on November 9 and10, 1938, were coined “Kristallnacht” (night of broken glass) by journalists, inreference to when the Nazis ravaged, burned, and looted Jewish synagogues, stores, andhomes. The Nazis claimed their actions were spontaneous when in fact orders had beengiven to act against the Jews, and crowds were incited to attack any Jews. Many Jewishpeople and organizations refer to this night as the November pogrom. After thispogrom, 30,000 Jews were rounded up and incarcerated.

5. Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945, Tenth Anniversary Edition.(New York: Bantam, 1986), p. 65.

6. Supposedly, Carl is the enigmatic “Dr. Cohn” mentioned in The Warburgs (pp. 475-476). Fritz Warburg and Carl August Cohn knew each other and Carl is almostcertainly the man who was paired up with Fritz by the prison guard. See Ron Chernow,The Warburgs : The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family (NewYork: Vintage, 1994).

7. See Herta Bahlsen-Cohn. My German Lessons, 1915-1939. (New York: Vantage Press,Inc., 1995).

8. He was in the Senatskanzlei, the official government office for Hamburg. Being a“Stadtstaat,” having the status of a federal state, Hamburg has senators, not ministers,as in Bavaria or Lower Saxony.

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9. Claudia Koonz.Mothers in the Fatherland. Women, Family Life, and Nazi Politics (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1987), p. 259.

10. 10. Maria Lugones. “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception.” InFeminist Social Thought: A Reader. Diana Tietjens Meyers, ed. (New York: Routledge,1997), pp. 148-159. Quote from p. 156.

11. The Nazis had approximately forty-three Konzentrationslager (KZ) (concentrationcamp) categories. The terms “Vernichtungslager” (extermination camp), such as Aus-chwitz, and “Arbeitslager” (labor camp), such as Theresienstadt, appear repeatedly inthe interviews. Also mentioned are Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Westerbork, andBergen-Belsen or Belsen, all of which were designated as “work” camps.

12. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved. Trans. Raymond Rosenthal. (New York:Summit Books, 1988), p. 21.

13. Paul John Eakin, Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention (NJ:Princeton UP, 1985), p. 252.

PART I I : THE LAW

1. In Germany, one may decorate walls with the swastika, and it is permissible to usehistorical photos with a swastika on it, or it may be used in pieces of art, but it must becritical, not propaganda art. If a publisher wants to use a swastika on a book cover, itmust be relevant to the book’s content. It would not be acceptable to use merely totrigger the interest of potential customers. Any sensitive designer/publisher would tryto avoid using it. The swastika was used in India many centuries ago, and you can findBuddha statues with a swastika on the forehead. Of course it would be legal to publishthose photos in a book and on the cover of it as well.

2. Libraries can buy this book for research; specifically, booksellers are allowed to sell it toonly those customers who give proof that they need it for research. Libraries are notallowed to lend it to people who have no proof of serious interest. However, anyone canownMein Kampf. Some people have three or four copies fromNazi relatives. This bookand other Nazi books tend to be kept in a so-called poison cabinet. Many Germans,especially those in younger generations, do not want visitors to browse the bookshelfand get the wrong impression. Thanks to K. Dohnke for this information.

3. Der Stürmer [The Stormer], a weekly newspaper published by the vicious anti-Semite,Julius Streicher, between 1923 and 1945. It became known worldwide as an anti-Semitic publication. Streicher printed repugnant, nearly pornographic photographs,cartoons, slogans, and articles about Jews. Streicher gave speeches and set upnationwide display cases that further popularized his paper.

4. Two racial laws issued on September 15, 1935. The Reichsbürgergesetz (Statecitizenship law) declared that Jews were not citizens of the German state. The Gesetzzum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre (Law for the protection ofGerman blood and honor) prohibited relations between Jews and Aryans and createdcategories and definitions for who was a Jew, Aryan, and Mischlinge. This legislationwas the foundation for all anti-Semitic laws that followed.

5. Ursula Büttner, “The Persecution of Christian-Jewish Families in the Third Reich,” LeoBaeck Institute Year Book 34 (1989): pp. 267-289. Quote from p. 271.

6. Nathan Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest inNazi Germany (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 71.

7. Named after Fritz Todt, SS General and ReichMinister for Armaments andMunitions.Todt is known for building the Autobahn. Todt put together a group of his ownlaborers forming the Todt Organization to construct the Western Wall, the Siegfried

Notes 345

Line. The project began in 1939. Todt used slave labor, including Mischlinge, for hisvarious projects.

8. Shari, Benstock, “Authorizing the Autobiographical,” in The Private Self: Theory andPractice of Women's Autobiographical Writings. Ed. Shari Benstock (Chapel Hill, NC: Uof North Carolina P, 1988), p. 29.

9. Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature,Psychoanalysis, and History (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 71.

10. Ingeborg Hecht, Invisible Walls: A German Family Under the Nuremberg Laws (NewYork: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), p. 136.

11. Louise J. Kaplan, No Voice Is Ever Wholly Lost (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995),pp. 225, 222

12. Aharon Appelfeld, Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth.Trans. Jeffrey M. Green (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corp, 1994), p.viii.

13. Laub in Felman and Laub, Testimony, p. 69, emphasis added.14. Büttner, “The Persecution of Christian-Jewish Families in the Third Reich,” p. 270.15. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Harper and Row, 1961),

p. 268.16. Büttner, “The Persecution of Christian-Jewish Families in the Third Reich,” p. 279.

CHAPTER 1

1. Ingeborg Hecht, Invisible Walls: A German Family Under the Nuremberg Laws (SanDiego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), p. 66.

2. Louise J. Kaplan, No Voice Is Ever Wholly Lost (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995),p. 222.

3. Hecht, Invisible Walls, p. 87.4. Ibid., p. 95.5. Ibid., p. 37.6. Ibid., p. 42.7. Ibid, p. 101.8. Ibid., p. 101.9. Ibid., p. 71.

10. Ibid., p. 72.11. Ibid., p. 73.12. Ibid., p. 75.13. Ibid., p. 76.14. Ibid., pp. 76-77.15. Ibid., p. 85.16. Ibid., p.108.17. Aharon Appelfeld, Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth.

Trans. Jeffrey M. Green (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corp, 1994), p.14.

18. Ibid., p. 18.19. Hanns Studniczka, Saturnische Erde: Stätten, Männer und Mächte Italiens [Saturnian

Earth: Places, Men and Powers of Italy] (Berlin: Verlag die Runde, 1941; 3rd ed.Frankfurt am Main, 1949).

20. Ingeborg Hecht, To Remember Is to Heal: Encounters between Victims of the NurembergLaws. Trans. John A. Broadwin (Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1999).

21. Ralph Giordano (1923 - ).Die Bertinis (Frankfurt amMain: S. Fischer, 1988, [1985]).Giordano is mentioned frequently in subsequent interviews. He is a Mischling. His

346 DIVIDED LIVES

mother was Jewish, his father of Italian descent (“Aryan”) from a family of musicians.His family survived first in a village after Hamburg was bombed in 1943 and finally inhiding in the cellar of a ruin in Hamburg. The story continues until May 1946 to showwhat happened after the war. The love for his hometown, Hamburg, plays animportant part in his book. The story has the form of a novel, a fictional family-sagastarting with the grandparents, but it is mostly autobiographical. It was first publishedin 1982 and was a great success. It was also a TV film.

22. Inge Hutton or “Kleine Inge” is a close friend of Hecht's. Inge did not want to meet atthe time because of scheduling overload. She has been featured in a film and hasconducted numerous interviews relating to her formerMischling status.

23. I got the impression that she enjoys being one of the few “half Jews” around. Thesuccess of her books has confirmed her claim to this territory.

24. Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS- Staat : eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmenund Richtlinien, Inhalt und Bedeutung (Heidelberg; Karlsruhe: Müller JuristischerVerlag, 1981).

25. This is an honorary prize. The real Anne-Frank Award was given to Ida Fink in Israel.See Hecht, To Remember Is to Heal, pp. 221-229.

26. The name of the oldest Gymnasium in Hamburg. For many people still the best schoolin which to make your Abitur (pre-college exams). Old schools are often named after achurchly saint (Johannes = St. John), or after the prince of the land, i.e., theLeopoldinum in Detmold where the prince who founded the school was Leopold.

27. Lotte Paepcke, Ein kleiner Händler, der mein Vater war (Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1998).28. Because she used an incorrect pronoun, Hecht actually said, when translated correctly,

that she “cross-sections the children.” Hecht's German is a flavorful mixture ofHochdeutsch and Southern dialect.

29. In 1979 the American movie Holocaust (with Meryl Streep as an “Aryan” wife of a Jewwho was sent to Theresienstadt/Auschwitz) ran on German TV. Almost everyone therewatched it. It was a success precisely because it was like a fictitious television show.Holocaust focused on a Jewish family called Weiss who originally came from Poland.Their fates mirrored the different fates of Jews during the war: The father was in theWarsaw ghetto, one daughter fought with Russian partisans, one was an artist inTheresienstadt. People were more moved by that film than by all the documentariesbecause it was easier to identify and sympathize with this Jewish family. Holocaustcaused the second wave of questions—What did you know about this?—from childrento parents and grandparents. The first wave was in the course of the student“revolution” in 1968, which was a movement motivated partly by anger at the secrecyand silence about the past. This generation actively sought to confront their parents’generation.

30. Because Hecht’s husband was a diplomat, he would not have been pressured to be inthe army. At that time, there were special rules and regulations. Soldiers holding certainranks were excluded from party membership; the military leaders had their ownstrategies and were not always purely Nazis.

31. Literally, it means the dot on the letter “i,” the final or ultimate thing to happen.32. See Hecht, To Remember Is to Heal, p. 128.33. Josef Mengele (1911 - 1979?). A Nazi very early on, he was the notorious camp doctor

at Auschwitz, in charge of selections for extermination and abominable medicalexperiments on humans.

34. Hecht is bothered by this phrase because many concentration camp prisoners diedfrom over-exhaustion or were gassed in the gas chambers. She thinks the phrase isinsensitive, in particular, to survivors of the Holocaust. The word Vergasen and thephrase to do something, “bis zum Vergasung,” is older than the Third Reich. Vergasen

Notes 347

can mean to kill with gas, but also it denotes in chemistry the process of Vergasung—carbonation/gassification. Originally, it meant to perform with so much energy thatfinally you dissolve/disintegrate into a gas. Today, of course, the word reminds one ofthe concentration camps.

35. Movie director Veit Harlan (1899–1964). Jud Süß (1940) was an anti-Semitic filmbased on a historical Jew who was financial consultant to a German prince/count in theeighteenth century. Harlan also directed other films that served the Nazi-propagandamachine, such as Kolberg (1944/45), a so-called Durchhaltefilm, a film motivating theGerman people zumDurchhalten, to hold out and not give up although the war seemedlost. Actress Kristina Söderbaum was born in Stockholm, married Harlan in 1939, andplayed mainly in his (melodramatic) films. She was one of the stars of so-calledTendenzfilme, films with a political purpose. Her nickname “Reichswasserleiche,”which also can be translated as “national drowned woman,” was given to her notespecially by Jews but was part of the whispered jokes common among some Germanswho liked to make fun of the Nazis’ pompous ways.

36. A short-lived, anti-Nazi student group founded at the University of Munich inFebruary 1943. The group attempted an anti-Nazi campaign but were thwarted by theGestapo. Most of the group's leaders were executed.

37. Andersch’s Sansibar oder der letzte Grund (Olten: Walter, 1957) is still read in Germanschools. It is about an escape from Nazi-Germany. Andersch was an anti-Fascist.

CHAPTER 2

1. Louise Kaplan, No Voice Is Ever Wholly Lost (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p.240.

2. An irony to note: When the Jews left Egypt with Moses, the Egyptians gave theIsraelites all their jewelry. Exodus 12: 35-36.

3. Her interest in facts and laws reminded me of Beate Meyer and Ursula Büttner, tworesearchers ofMischlinge in Hamburg. Meyer and Büttner had interviewed Ingrid, andMeyer did a video production of Ingrid's extended family entitled Familie Riemann-Blumenthal. Grindelallee 139.

4. Ursula Büttner and Werner Jochmann, Hamburg auf dem Weg ins Dritte Reich.Entscheidungsjahre 1931-1933, 4th ed. (Hamburg: Landeszentrale für politischeBildung, 1993).

5. The black-white-red flag was the old Reichs flag from the Kaiser era, which ended in1918. Very conservative people, German nationals, Kaiser-true (those who still hopedthe emperor would come back) still showed this flag during the Weimar Republic. Incase those Conservatives did not like the Nazis either (which was often the case), theytried to show this old flag instead of the swastika flag. But then the Nazis made theswastika flag obligatory to show on flag days. The Communist flag was red with ahammer and sickle.

6. Psychiatrist Hans Bürger-Prinz, military district doctor in Paris and Hamburg,conducted experiments on humans considered to be mentally ill. There was strongevidence that he was trained in killing activities, such as were carried out at BurgSonnenstein, and tried to make money from it. After the war, he denied his activitiesand served as President of the German Society of Psychiatrists and Neurologists(GSPN) from 1959 to 1960.

7. This was her father's final destination. It was one of six euthanasia centers opened April1940 and closed May 1943. There were 20,000 victims. At first it was a sanatoriumbut the Nazis made it a killing center.

348 DIVIDED LIVES

8. “Within the context of Nazi eugenics, euthanasia became a term for the systematicmurder of those deemed “unworthy of life.” Initially, the plan was to sterilize thephysically and mentally disabled. After the war began, however, the Nazis convertedfrom sterilization to murder to speed up the eugenic benefits of the program. In August1941 the Euthanasia Program was officially terminated, due to the resistance of theGerman people and Church. In practice, however, killings on eugenic grounds—aswell as medical experiments on concentration camp inmates—continued to the end ofthe war. . . . Throughout its existence (1939 - 1945) at least 100,000 people fell victimto the Euthanasia Program.” Abraham J. Edelheit and Hershel Edelheit, History of theHolocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 229.

9. This was a Nazi organization, so the term was used only between 1933 and 1945. In alaw from September 22, 1933, it states that everybody working in the field of art orculture had to join this organization. It was subdivided into the Reichsschrifttumskam-mer for writers; Reichspressekammer for journalists; Reichstheaterkammer for actors,performers, and theater people; Reichsmusikkammer for musicians, composers, andthe like, and an intermediate Filmkammer for movie directors, film actors, and peopleworking in studios; later it became an official Kammer. By expelling people from theKammer, the Nazis made it difficult for these artists to do their work. They could bedismissed for political, racial, or simply personal reasons.

10. Actually called “Bund deutscher Mädel in der HJ,” League of German Girls. Femalesector of HJ/Hitlerjugend, Hitler Youth, an organization for fourteen- to eighteen-year-old girls. After 1939, membership was obligatory for “Aryans.” Both the BDMand HJ, seemingly innocent youth groups (like the Boy Scouts) on the exterior, weremain balusters of Hitler's propaganda. Many former members, especially those in theBDM, claim today that they did not realize the political aspects of these groups(inherent in their songs, rhetoric, slogans, pledges).

11. Education in Germany is not centralized. There is a different system in each Germanstate. Grundschule (term after the war) or Volksschule (term before the war): elementaryschool. All children must attend this level together, after which they split and followparticular paths. The following schools are secondary schools: Hauptschule has avocational training emphasis; Realschule has a commercially oriented curriculum;Gymnasium or Lyzeum (girls only) is college preparatory.

12. From the Nazi Party newspaper Der Stürmer. A lot of ugly caricatures of Jews, usuallyon the front page, depicted them with big hooked noses and fat lips. “Ponem” is aYiddish word for head. So this is a Jewish way to describe his looks.

13. See Heinz Rosenberg, Jahre des Schreckens: . . . und ich blieb ubrig, dass ich Dirs ansage(Gottingen: Steidl Verlag, 1985).

14. Kronprinzenkoog is an area in the very west of Schleswig-Holstein. “Koog” means anarea where land is gained from the sea. The technique of gaining land started inmedieval times. The Nazis were big with these projects, and the first Nazi Koog (pluralKöge) was called Adolf-Hitler-Koog; the name was changed after 1945.

15. K. Ernst Dohnke mentioned, “You cannot blame it only on the Jews. The worshipservices are open, but nobody wants to come in. I think that people are not interestedin this time of World War II. You could write more and more books about it, like I tryto do as an independent publicist, but nobody would buy a book. Even today, ifanybody hears the word “sect” in connection with a religious group, immediatelypeople work against this group since they could influence young children. But theproblem is, most of these groups are not dangerous sects, but are all thrown into onepot without any effort of distinguishing. That is why even the Jewish church hasdifficulty establishing itself in today's Germany.”

Notes 349

16. Flak stands for Flugabwehrkanone, anti-air raid gun. Heimatflak were the guns in theneighborhoods manned by people from the area. Flak is more common usage. Manywomen served this job [see the Erna Tietz chapter in Alison Owings, Frauen: GermanWomen Recall the 3rd Reich (New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1994), pp. 266-283].

17. The German reading and other systems are based on a 1 to 5 or 1 to 6 scale, the highernumber being the worst.

18. Käthe Starke, Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt. Bilder, Impressionen, Reportagen,Dokumente (Berlin: Haude und Spenersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1975).

19. Henny Porten was a famous actress in successful movies. Günter Hagen was acomedian who performed in cabarets in Berlin. He died in Theresienstadt. Theconnection with theater was through Ingrid's uncle, Felix Rodemund.

20. House of the Freemasons where Jews were gathered before the Nazis drove them to thetrain station to deport them to Theresienstadt and other ghettos/concentration camps.Some had to stay there for several days in appalling living conditions.

CHAPTER 3

1. Susan Neiman, Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin (New York: Schocken Books Inc.,1992), p. 16.

2. By Eugen Roth (1895-1976). He wrote “Ein Mensch.” Often he takes little snapshotsfrom people's lives that are light and humorous and display the fullness of humanity.

3. One Nazi idea was that bread comes from the pure, German soil and thus is sacred. Herfather had internalized the Brot idea—the Nazi logic that German soil stood forsomething sacred. These and other ideas were extracted from the Bible and twisted intoNazi slogans.

4. Foreman. Term used in Nazi concentration camps to designate an inmate appointed bythe SS to head a labor group of other prisoners. Sometimes a Jewish man or womanwas chosen, which, at the least, bought them time. These Kapos were known for theirbrutality toward fellow prisoners and often were more feared than the SS.

5. It is debatable whether Ruth could have known at such an early age of these atrocities.They were well documented in published accounts after the war; she may have readthem and confused them with an earlier memory. Because of her connection to theJewish community, it is possible that she had heard stories.

6. According to Paul Johnson's A History of the Jews (New York: Harper and Row, 1987),p. 590, “The non-legal part of the Talmud and midrash, tales, folklore, legends, etc.,as opposed to the Law itself (halakhah)."

7. Ration cards, called Lebensmittelkarten, were issued on August 27, 1939. The amountof rations one received depended on one's ethnicity. Jews received the smallestallotment, averaging under 500 calories per day.

8. She probably meant Häscher, myrmidons, people who carry out orders withoutquestion. Today it still refers to human bloodhounds.

9. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803). A celebrated poet. He wrote the first largeepic of modern German literature “Der Messias.” His odes were published in 1771;they were influenced by the Bible and Horace, Pindar, and Milton. His topics werelove, friendship, and fatherland. He is situated somewhere between late Baroque andClassicism. (Goethe and Schiller are younger). He was a forerunner of Sturm undDrang, Irrationalism, and Empfindsamkeit (sentimentality). He died in Hamburg, andwas buried in Altona. Klopstock was a bourgeois poet, a man who had written an epochon a Christian theme, whose original sympathies for the French revolution had turnedinto criticism and condemnation when the terror mounted. In East Germany onlyeighteenth-century writers were favored who could be shown as a forerunner of

350 DIVIDED LIVES

Communism. Klopstock was old-fashioned and out of date. Johann Gottfried Herder(1744-1803), philosopher, in contrast, was a more modern, politically engaged authorand pragmatic thinker.

10. Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth). A socialist organization whose member-ship was mandatory for all boys and girls in Eastern Germany after 1946. Uniformswere required and, like the Hitler Youth, there was strong political indoctrination.

11. Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1884) stressed importance ofsocial arrangements and that some exceptional human beings, the “overmen” (Über-menschen), could rise to a higher level of creativity and independence, elevating themabove the normal “herd” (Untermenschen).Hitler perverted and used Nietzsche's termsto further bolster his own “ruling Aryan” ideology. [Trans. Walter Kaufmann (NewYork: The Viking Press, 1966 [1954])].

12. Persilschein, meaning an “ivory snow” certificate, is a colloquialism for a certificate ofyour innocence, a new word coined after 1945 when the de-Nazification started. Persilwas (and is) the best-known detergent in Germany—it makes everything white/innocent again. Those suspected of Nazi activity had to obtain signatures fromwitnesses as proof they had acted humanely during the Third Reich.

13. The Russians arrived in May 1945 and raped German women whenever they foundthem; this continued for months. German women were hiding in lofts or basementsfor long periods of time. Other women who were in Berlin at the end of the warexperienced similar atrocities. Rapes also occurred in all other places in East Germanythat were liberated by the Soviet Army. It is not surprising that the majority of Germansnever refer to 1945 as the liberation, but say they were defeated or conquered in 1945.In the DDR people were not allowed to say this, but had to refer to the Russians as thepower they were grateful to. There are stories about Jewish women at the time who saidthey were Jewish and they were not raped. Ruth’s mixed identity was what forced herto hide like all the others. After being a Jew up to age ten and then having become astrict Lutheran, with an atheistic stepfather, she probably was not able to go out andsay “I am Jewish” because she did not feel like that any more after such a 180 degreeturnaround. In her mind it had become too dangerous to ever acknowledge this fully.

14. Ruth is arguing against centuries of anti-Semitic laws that said Jews could be businesspeople but that working with money was not honorable. Hitler equated Jews to rats—gluttonous, base vermin. They were rats who dirtied their hands with money.

15. Not translatable. Generally, the inhabitants of Hamburg who spoke the Low Germandialect (Plattdeutsch) used this term to refer to somebody who spoke standard or HighGerman. According to Ruth, it is ingrained in much of Hamburg thinking that the cityhas walls around it and people who come from outside do not really belong.

16. Official newspaper published by the National Socialist Party from 1921 to 1945. In1923 it became a daily paper. Several libraries have holdings of the paper.

17. Short for Zigeuner, Gypsy. This is an old German term now discredited as prejudicial;the Nazis used it.

18. The two main “tribes” of Gypsies. They make up about 90 percent of all Gypsies inGermany. Both terms are always used together, as a non-Gypsy can not distinguish onefrom another, and the Gypsies’ feel this is a neutral expression as compared to Zigeuner.On numerous occasions the Sinti and Roma have staged protests in an attempt to forcepoliticians into negotiations.

19. “Sich fettfressen” means gluttony. This is a common expression.20. “Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten” means land of unlimited possibilities. This is a

common expression.21. “Was mir in der Fremde blühte”—literally what would blossom in strangeness, what was

in store for me, what I was in for. This is a common expression.

Notes 351

22. Ruth said “Marder,” which is marten fur. Probably she is referring to furs from theirformer shop.

CHAPTER 4

1. For example, Abba Solomon Eban,Dies ist mein Volk; die Geschichte der Juden (Zürich:Droemer, 1970); Clara Eisenkraft, Damals in Theresienstadt: Erlebnisse einer Juden-Christen (Wuppertal: Aussaat Verlag, 1977); SimonWiesenthal,Die Sonnenblume: EineErzählung mit Kommentaren (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1984); Bernt Engelman,Deutschland ohne Juden. Eine Bilanz (München: Schneekluth, 1970); Ralph Giordano,ed., Narben, Spuren, Zeugen: 15 Jahre Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deut-schland (Düsseldorf: Verlag Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland,1961).

2. Masuren is a part of East Prussia that now belongs to Poland.3. Hermann Goering (1894-1946). President of the Reichstag, Chief Commander of the

Luftwaffe, originator of the Gestapo, and Hitler’s successor. He was a blusteringextrovert, which caused many Germans to mistakenly think he was good-natured andaccessible. In actuality, he was a depraved egomaniac. See John E. Dolibois, Pattern ofCircles: An Ambassador’s Story (Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 1989), especially pp. 110-237.

4. Adolph Menzel (1815-1905). A self-taught man who was one of the forerunners of theImpressionists in his use of color and light, he is famous for his drawings and paintings.He was favored by the bourgeoisie for his paintings of historical subjects, especially thelife of the eighteenth-century Prussian king Friedrich the Great. He also paintedfactories, nineteenth-century industry, when that was not yet considered a worthytopic.

5. Werner Höfer was the host of one of the longest-running TV talk shows, called DerInternationale Frühschoppen (“Frühschoppen” is a German habit of having a glass ofwine at noon on Sundays). It was broadcast Sundays at noon not only in Germany butalso on Swiss and Austrian TV and on German public radio. Journalists—correspon-dents for foreign newspapers working in Germany as well as one or two Germanjournalists—discussed international and national politics (and a hostess ran aroundand refilled the wine glasses). The show's motto could have been “Discussing theHeadlines of theWeek.” The show had top ratings. Then the media revealed that Höferhad been a Nazi journalist (he wrote Nazi material, although not purely ideological).Although his show had a democratic touch, he had to resign, and the show terminated.Its successor, Der Presseclub, still runs every Sunday at noon.

6. Deutschkron spoke on many programs about the Jewish situation. She has writtenmany books including her memoir, Ich trug den gelben Stern [Outcast: A Jewish Girl inWartime Berlin, trans. Jean Steinberg (New York : Fromm International Pub. Corp.,1989)], Unbequem—: mein Leben nach dem Überleben (Köln: Wissenschaft undPolitik, 1992); and . . . denn ihrer war die Hölle. Kinder in Gettos und Lagern (Köln,Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1965). The play Ab heute heißt du Sara is based on hermemoir.

7. National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The Nazi Party. Originally founded as theDeutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party) in 1919, it developed into a power-house a decade later. The employment of “socialist” in its title is misleading: Hitler'sparty was not a socialist party in the Marxist sense of the word. He did not advocateclass struggle; rather, racial conflict between“Aryans” and Jews.

8. Part of the Western Front; namely, a huge fortification with hundreds of concreteshelters along the French coast. The Nazis expected an invasion and wanted to protect

352 DIVIDED LIVES

the coast from troops coming in from Great Britain. Many German men, older soldierswho were not fit for fighting, were drafted and sent as laborers.

9. Düsseldorf was bombed by the British numerous times: between July and September,1942; between January and April, 1943; into the summer, 1943; and on April 22-23,1944. Dudley Saward, Bomber Harris (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,1985), pp. 148, 196-197, 232.

10. This is a term used to denote Russian female soldiers or any harsh, heartless, masculineuniformed women.

11. The well-known Leuna-Werke, a chemical factory producing synthetics, artificial fuel/propellant for war efforts, was in Leuna. In 1944 the Leuna-Werke were nearlydestroyed. Halle was severely bombed, so slave workers were no longer needed. Theworkers were sent to Theresienstadt in January 1945. After the war, Halle became themost important industrial region of East Germany.

12. The Red Army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.13. At the end of the ninth year, students take this series of exams. These exams must be

taken in order for a student to study at a university. Most Mischlinge were unable totake them.

14. An exam based on aptitude and experience. After the war and in the early 1950s therewere people who did not have qualifications for university study because the war hadforced them to leave school for various reasons, so this exam was instated to fill animmense demand for teachers. In Hessen the education minister, Miekatz, publicizeda search for former elementary teachers who had retired to get married and havefamilies. He wanted them to come back to the schools. These women were calledMiekätzchen (pun on Maikätzchen, kitten born in May).

15. Ruth Klüger, weiter leben. Eine Jugend (Gottingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1992).16. Successful German writer. Germans make a distinction between highly regarded

literature and what they call Unterhaltungs, or Trivial- literatur. Simmel's books arebest-sellers, but he is not read or taught at universities because his novels are consideredTrivial. Simmel writes about issues that are currently being discussed; he was one of thefirst writers to include show business, terrorism, cancer, and foreign policy in popularnovels (a break from the usual subject of Weltanschauung [world view] that Germanwriters tend to write about). He seeks out trends and used to put out a book a year.

17. See Yost interview, chapter 3.18. Ralph Giordano, Die zweite Schuld, oder, Von der last Deutscher zu sein (München:

Knaur, 1990 [1987]). In addition to the Die Bertinis (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer,1988, [1985]), (see Hecht interview, chapter 1), he wrote numerous books about theNazi time.

CHAPTER 5

1. Randt, Ursula, Carolinestraße 35. Geschichte der Mädchenschule der Deutsch-Israelitis-chen Gemeinde in Hamburg 1884-1942 (Hamburg: Selbstverlag Verein für Hambur-gische Geschichte, 1984).

2. Although this was not the case with Ursula, according to Alexander and MargareteMitscherlich, “An unusually fateful historical moment was at hand. Parents grewnotoriously afraid of their [usually older] children, who were being urged by the Naziyouth organizations to interrogate and if necessary denounce them to the super-fatheror big brother. Suddenly, it was possible to act out Oedipal wishes directly.” TheInability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behavior, trans. Beverley R. Placzek (NewYork: Grove Press, Inc., 1975), p. 47.

Notes 353

3. Actual decree, July 25, 1938, prohibiting Jewish doctors from practicing medicine. Thelaw did not go into effect until October.

4. In “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany: Daily Life, Daily Struggles, 1933-1939,” p.197,Marion A. Kaplan states, “The pain of their children—who often faced anti-Semitismmore immediately than their parents from classmates and teachers in German publicschools—disturbed both women and men profoundly as parents, but women learnedof and dealt with the children's distress more directly than men. When children camehome from school, their mothers heard the stories first and had to respond.” InDifferent Voices: Women and the Holocaust, Carol Rittner and John K. Roth, ed. (NewYork: Paragon House, 1993), pp. 187-212.

5. Adrienne Thomas, Die Katrin wird Soldat : ein Roman aus Elsass-Lothringen (Frankfurtam Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1987). English translation: Katrin Becomes aSoldier, trans. Margaret L Goldsmith (Boston: Little, Brown, 1931). First published inGermany, 1930. It has been translated into fourteen languages. It is written in the formof a diary of a young girl, Catherine Lentz, starting in 1911 with her fourteenthbirthday and ending with her death in 1915. She lives in Metz in Lothringen, which atthe time was German and became French again after 1918. She wants to be a singer,but in the war she is a nurse for the Red Cross.

6. These classes were home economics (needlepoint and cooking) for girls and “shop”(carpentry and mechanics) for boys.

7. Starting on February 15, 1938, all unmarried females under the age of twenty-five werecompelled to serve for one year in housekeeping or farming. Exempted were onlywomen who were working there anyway. A person’s Pflichtjahr was written down in awork book. If there was no entry, a woman was not permitted to find other workoutside of farming and housekeeping. The goal of the Pflichtjahr was vocationalguidance and to satisfy the need for labor. At the time there were still a lot of largefamilies, so the mothers really needed help. It also had to do with the idea that socialclasses should become unimportant and everyone feel equal as a German Volksgenosse(member of the people) whether poor or rich.Women whomade Abitur had to do theirPflichtjahr before they could go to a university. These workers did gain insights intoother social classes, but also were exploited quite a bit, made to work from morning tonight. At the time it was not unusual for girls from a well-off background not to havean occupation but to stay in the family until they found a husband. Married womendid not work, even when there were no children. They had to do housekeeping for theirhusbands. In 1940 there were about 200,000 women doing their Pflichtjahr. (Thanksto Almuth Ditmar-Kolb for this information.)

8. Riga was a ghetto with a work camp nearby. There Jews starved or were worked todeath.

9. All Jews in the German Reich had to wear the star beginning September 19, 1941. Thedeportations to the East (the Hamburg Jews were sent to Riga, Lodz, Minsk,Theresienstadt, or Auschwitz) from the Altreich started on October 14, 1941. Theseevents are what made Randt so sick in late 1941.

10. July 2, 1942. Decree against Mischlinge in public schools. The laws were named afterBernhard Rust, the minister of education who devoted himself to expelling Jews fromschools. Rust committed suicide in 1945.

11. KLV for short. Literally, evacuation of children to the country. The KLV started beforethe war with the idea to send “Aryan” children whose health was bad from the biggercities to the country so they could get better. Jewish children, even if their health wasbad, could not be sent to the country. When the aerial warfare became worse in 1942,all the young students in endangered places were sent to rural areas in East and SouthGermany and also in the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (the former Czechoslova-

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kia). From 1941 to 1944 about 800,000 children altogether were sent away from homewith the KLV to camps organized by the Hitler Youth. There the Nazis had anopportunity to bring up children to become Nazis, to indoctrinate them. Parents couldnot be forced to send their children away, but in the big cities, where there were air raidsall the time, there was no school and parents did not really have any choice.

12. When asked by author Alison Owings what her first impression of the Americansoldiers was, Frau Martha Brixius replied, “They looked very healthy and red-cheeked.Well dressed, the uniforms still in one piece and new. From our point of view, theylooked fantastic. Ach, to us they looked like gods.” Cited in Frauen: German WomenRecall The Third Reich (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1994), p. 209.

CHAPTER 6

1. After Kristallnacht, you could still buy someone free (freikaufen) from the camps when,in addition, you could prove that the person had a visa.

2. A town in Lower Saxony between Hannover and Braunschweig.3. Ahrensburg is a suburb of Hamburg in the northeast, but there was no real camp there,

only a place where forced laborers were kept. On the other hand, Neuengamme had somany outposts in the Hamburg area that it is hard to tell which were camps and whichnot.

4. The mother’s sisters were taken to ghettos or camps later, when the deportations fromthe Altreich started on October 14, 1941.

5. In Poland, where on September 7, 1942, an Aktion took place; 6,000 victims weremurdered at Belzec.

6. A camp near the villages of Bergen and Belsen in Prussian Hanover, Germany,established in 1943 as a prisoner-of-war camp and Jewish transit camp. Around 35,000prisoners died from disease, starvation, and overwork. Known as one of the mostsqualid of Germany’s camps and where Anne Frank, author of the world-renowneddiary, died.

7. The Jews were not kept and harassed in the city hall. They were gathered in a place atthe Moorweide close to Dammtor train station that belonged to the Freemasons. It's avery impressive building purported to have a Spiegelsaal, a room with mirrors.

8. Buchholz is a little town southwest of Hamburg.9. “Fragt mich noch ein Loch in den Bauch,” means “asks me a hole into my belly.” A

German expression for somebody, especially a child, who relentlessly asks questions.10. Swing-Jugend were kids who listened to American swing music. They dressed different-

ly, did not join the Hitler Youth, and did not follow rules. Some of them were sent toa concentration camp for youth in Moringen/Lower Saxony; others were not caught.

CHAPTER 7

1. See Sigrid Lorenzen interview, chapter 8, for clarification.

CHAPTER 8

1. During the war it was rumored that King Christian X threatened to wear the star ofDavid to protest anti-Semitic laws that the Germans were putting in place.

Notes 355

CHAPTER 9

1. A part of Hamburg east of Uhlenhorst and south of Barmbek, so the so-called Jewishliving quarters around Grindel and Emsbüttel were on the other side of the Außenal-ster.

2. This could not be. Dresden was bombed on February 13 and 14, 1945, by Britishbombers at night, and for the following six days by American bombers by day.

3. The part of Czechoslovakia where mostly Germans lived (the Sudeten are the SudeticMountains or Sudetes) that was taken from Czechoslovakia in 1938.

4. She may be referring to a TV documentary series on the German army in World WarII; in particular, what the Russians did to the German prisoners of war. They gave themfood that gave them diarrhea before they were marched through Moscow in 1945. Sothe losing army made a very bad impression on the Russians who watched their longmarch through the city. Here Margot empathizes with the Germans.

5. Quark is a dairy product, similar to cottage cheese that is mixed with sour cream.6. If there are two people looking for the same job, it is given to the woman so she finally

has a chance. In Germany now, the word “Quotenfrau” is nearly an invective.7. Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt. Motto: believe, obey and fight. These were

boarding schools where the Nazis raised young boys (a few were for girls too) from theage of ten to precollege exams to become good Nazis. They had to do a lot of sportsand paramilitary education, but in some they also got a good school education. In the1940s there were more than forty Napolas. It is a rarely mentioned topic, but as peoplewho were sent to these schools by their Nazi (more or less) parents are retired now, theyfinally feel free to talk about the topic. Most of them were not allowed to go to theuniversity after 1945. Many well-known people went to Napolas: the actor HardyKruger, artist Horst Janssen, book critic Hellmuth Karasek, diplomats like Rüdiger vonWechmar. See Johannes Leeb, “Wir waren Hitlers Eliteschüler": ehemalige Zöglingeder NS-Ausleseschulen brechen ihr Schweigen (Hamburg : Rasch und Röhring, 1998).

8. Hans Globke (1898-1973). Authored numerous commentaries and legislation duringthe Nazi period. He was never a member of the NSDAP (the Nazi party). After the warhe served as State Secretary of the Chancellery, and Federal Chancellor KonradAdenauer, an avid anti-Nazi, stood by Globke despite his past record.

CHAPTER 10

1. Ursula Bosselmann, “Plötzlich waren wir keine Deutschen und keine Christenmehr:Ein Zeitzeugnis der Jahre 1933-1945.” ["Suddenly we were no longer Germanor Christian. A Report of the years 1933 to 1945"] in Ausgegrenzt: Schicksalswege“nichtarischer” Christen in der Hitlerzeit [Isolated: The destiny of “non-Aryan” Chris-tians in the time of Hitler], Arnulf H. Baumann, ed. (Hannover: LutherischesVerlagshaus, 1992). Translated here by Cynthia Crane.

2. Dov Edelstein, Worlds Torn Asunder. Although Bosselmann and her friends translatedhis book, it was never published. Bosselmann gave the German manuscript, Weltenzerbrachen, to him as a present

3. The book was also known in the United States. In 1996, Mitscherlich appeared on theTV news program Dateline and discussed aspects of her book.

4. This ceremony, before school started, was obligatory at some schools. It was notregularly done. There was a “flags parade” when you were in a camp of the HitlerYouth.

5. An oath the Swiss originally recited when Switzerland was founded. Rütli is an alpinemeadow/hill on which the oath took place, and the oath is the founding legend of

356 DIVIDED LIVES

Switzerland. (Schiller based his play Wilhelm Tell on it.) The term “Rütli-Schwur” isused for any kind of very special, honest oath. Bosselmann uses it ironically here.

6. The Hitler-Gruß was also called Deutscher Gruß. You raised your outstretched rightarm about eye-level with your left arm at your side like a soldier. Only Hitler and someof his leading men greeted with their arm at an angle. It was probably used around1925 and was mandated after 1933 as the German greeting.

7. Lines from “The Horst Wessel Song.” Wessel was a Berlin SA (stormtrooper) leader.After his death, this tune became the NSDAP’s (the Nazi party's) anthem, and he wascanonized through Nazi propaganda. He was killed in 1930 in a brawl. He was amoral,which Goebbels cleverly kept quiet. Wessel had been a (Nazi) pimp fighting forprostitutes in the streets. The line from the song here refers to the Communists(Rotfront) and the ultra-conservative party (Reaktion).

8. Two forms of address in German: familiar you (between friends), “du”; and formal you(to superiors, elders, or acquaintances), “Sie.” Today, addressing an in-law as “Sie” israre.

9. Literally “steel helmets.” A group of German veterans with nationalist leanings whohad served in World War I. After 1933 this group was a part of the Sturmabteilungen(SA) (stormtroopers). At that time, some members left.

10. Posen was an originally Polish land, south of West Prussia, that belonged to Prussiafrom 1815 to 1918; then it became Polish again. The population was mixed, German,Polish, and Jewish. Many Germans and Jews left Posen after the end of World War I,in 1918, to live in Germany.

11. Although “Blankenese” was written in the original text, apparently during the war theairfield was in Ütersen between Wedel und Elmshorn, west of Hamburg, not inBlankenese.

12. Gösta Berling is a famous novel by Swedish Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf.13. Assistance to the poor. Hitler renamed this league.14. Jochen Klepper (1903 - 1942) was a Christian writer married to a Jewish woman who

had a Jewish daughter. He is now famous primarily for the fact that he, his wife, andhis stepdaughter committed suicide under Nazi pressure. His diaries were published in1956 and 1958; they are moving documents of the times.

15. Damokles’ sword comes via poet Friedrich Schiller from Greek mythology. The swordwas held by a horse’s hair. If it fell your life was lost. It is a common phrase amongGermans. When Damokles' Sword hovers over a situation, very important issues are atstake. If fate is in your favor, the sword will not fall.

16. Carol Rittner and John K. Roth,Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust (New York:Paragon House, 1993), p. 9. “Already laws decreed in 1933, during the earliest monthsof the Nazi regime, legalized race-hygiene sterilization to prevent the propagation oflebensunwertes Leben (lives unworthy of life).”

17. See Ursula Büttner, “The Persecution of Christian-Jewish Families in the Third Reich.”Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 34 (1989): 289. “[February 1945] . . . Jewish husbandsand wives up to now defined as living in 'privileged mixed marriages,' were deportedto Theresienstadt. . . . The Jews living in 'mixed marriages' and probably the half Jewsas well owed their survival only to the ultimately rapid collapse of Hitler's regime."

18. Magdalene Wanske, Wie Engelchen seine Mutter suchte. Ein Märchen in Versen, 16th ed.(Esslingen: Gebundene Ausgabe Hahns, 1930). First published in 1927. Successfulchildren’s book.

19. Ursula stated, “One should read about what all that meant in Der Führer schenkt denJuden eine Stadt (The Führer gives the Jews a city) by Käthe Starke or in Theresienstadt1941-1945 by Hans G. Adler.

20. Hamburg, because it is a port city, is known as “the gateway to the world."

Notes 357

21. “Church day.” This is an annual tradition featuring speakers, workshops, music, andso on that began after 1945. Originally initiated by the Lutheran Church, today it hasturned into more of an ecumenical gathering (sign of tolerance), but it remainsprimarily a Lutheran concern. A Katholischer Kirchentag is now being held annually aswell. Both run for a week.

22. Ralph Giordano is a well-known Mischling and German author whose mother wasGerman Jewish and whose father was Italian Christian. See also Hecht and Wilmscheninterviews, chapters 1 and 4 respectively.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Alcoff, Linda Martin. “The Problem of Speaking for Others.” In Who Can Speak? Authorityand Critical Identity. Judith Roof and Robyn Wiegman, eds. Chicago: U of Illinois P,1995, pp. 97-119.

Anderson, Linda. “At the Threshold of the Self: Women and Autobiography.” Women’sWritings: A Challenge to Theory, 54-71. Moira Monteith, ed. New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1986.

Barbre, Joy Webster et al. The Personal Narratives Group (eds.) Interpreting Women’s Lives:Feminist Theory and Personal Narratives. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989.

Benstock, Shari, ed. The Private Self: Theory and Practice of Women’s Autobiographical Writings.Chapel Hill, NC: U of North Carolina P, 1988.

———. “Authorizing the Autobiographical.” In The Private Self: Theory and Practice ofWomen’s Autobiographical Writings. Shari Benstock, ed. Chapel Hill, NC: U of NorthCarolina P, 1988, pp. 10-33.

Brodzki, Bella and Celeste Schenck, eds. Life/Lines: Theorizing Women’s Autobiography. Ithaca,NY: Cornell UP, 1988.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. “My Statue, My Self: Autobiographical Writings of Afro-AmericanWomen.” In The Private Self. Shari Benstock, ed. Chapel Hill, NC: U of NorthCarolina P, 1988, pp. 63-89

Gusdorf, Georges. “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography.” Trans. James Olney. InAutobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, James Olney, ed. Princeton, NJ:Princeton UP, 1980, pp. 28-48.

Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Writing A Woman’s Life. New York: Ballantine Books, 1988.Hewitt, Lea. Autobiographical Tightropes. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1990.Kristeva, Julia. The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York:

Columbia UP, 1982, pp. 1-17.

364 DIVIDED LIVES

Miller, Nancy K. “Women’s Autobiography in France: For A Dialectics of Identification.” InWomen and Language in Literature and Society. Sally McConnell-Ginet et al, eds. NewYork: Praeger, 1980, pp. 258-273.

Moers, Ellen. Literary Women. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1976.Morgan, Janice, and Colette T. Hall, eds. Redefining Autobiography in 20th Century Women’s

Fiction: An Essay Collection. New York: Garland, 1991.Olney, James. “Autobiography and the Cultural Moment: A Thematic, Historical, and

Bibliographical Introduction.” In Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. JamesOlney, ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1980, pp. 1-27.

Smith, Sidonie. Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body: Women’s Autobiographical Practices in the20th Century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1991.

Spender, Stephen. “Confessions and Autobiography.” In Autobiography: Essays Theoretical andCritical. James Olney, ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1980, pp. 115-122.

Titon, Jeff Todd. “The Life Story.” Journal of American Folklore 93 (1980): 276-292.Witherell, Carol, and Nel Noddings. Stories Lives Tell: Narrative and Dialogue in Education.

New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1991.

INDEX

Adagio for Strings, Opus 11 (Barber), 14Adenauer, 132, 228, 292Ahrensburg (concentration camp),

209, 354 n.3Altona Museum, 285Altona-Ottensen (cemetery site), 204anti-Jewish laws, 3, 12, 53, 139–142,

279, 302, 305, 307, 310, 311description of, 23–39list of, 69–73

Appelfeld, Aharon (author), 35, 51Aryan classification, 4, 5, 28Auschwitz (concentration camp):

conditions in, 30, 60, 253, 276deaths in, 45, 46, 167deportations to, 100, 144liberation of, 149survivors of, 59, 101, 228, 298

Ausgegrenzt: Schicksalswege “nich-tarischer” Christen in der Hitlerzeit(Baumann), 298, 355 n.1

B., Ilse, 201–228Aryan appearance of, 206, 207,

212, 213, 215brother of, 205–206, 215, 216,

218, 219confirmation of, 205cultural identity of, 203daughter of, 223, 224, 226deportation of relatives, 207, 210,

212education of, 205, 207father of, 205–207, 213, 215, 216,

218–222

fears of speaking, 216, 218grandparents of, 206, 210husband of, 216, 222, 223Mischling status of, 203, 205mother of, 205–216, 218–221,

226religious identity of, 220split identity of, 203views of modern Germany, 216,

217, 222, 223, 224, 225visits to Wolbrum, 211–212

Bajohr, Frank, 343 n.1baptism, 4, 9, 29, 47, 137, 174, 236,

304, 319Bauer (physician), 305BDM (league of German girls), 89,

139, 179, 187, 188, 278, 306, 320,348 n.10

Benstock, Shari (theorist), 32Bergen-Belsen (work camp), 210, 212,

354 n.6bombing of Dresden, 355 n.2bombing of Düsseldorf, 148–149, 352

n.9bombing of Giessen, 190bombing of Hamburg, 98–99, 186,

188, 192, 229, 253, 275, 300, 322bombing of Munich, 232Bormann, Martin (aid to Hitler), 250,

251, 267Bosselmann, Ursula, 297–341

activities as dancer, 298, 299, 308,320, 321, 323

confirmation of, 307cultural identity of, 307, 354deportation of relatives, 309–310

366 DIVIDED LIVES

education of, 301, 306, 307, 333father of, 302–306, 308–309, 311,

314–318, 320, 323–333, 338grandparents of, 302, 304, 307,

312–316, 337illness of, 324–326importance of speaking, 336memoirs, 298, 299migraines, 299, 337Mischling status of, 317mother of, 303–320, 323–333,

335, 338psychotherapy treatments, 299,

337, 338religious identity of, 307, 339sisters of, 298, 304–306, 312, 314,

320, 322, 323–328, 331, 333split identity of, 316, 334suicides of family members, 299,

315, 331views of aggression, 340views of modern Germany, 339–

340work as minister, 298, 299, 333–

334Buchenwald (concentration camp),

309Bürger-Prinz, Hans (psychiatrist), 347

n.6businesses forced to close, 343 n.1Büttner, Ursula (historian), 38, 309,

356 n.17

civil service, 140–142, 278classification:

and government documents, 11,23, 310

Aryan, 4, 5, 28Jewish, 3, 23, 28Mischling, 4, 28

Cohn (Crane) family, 3–19, 50, 169,343 n.2

Communists, 64, 79, 113, 115, 119,120, 187, 198, 235, 293

concentration camps:Ahrensburg, 209, 354 n.3Auschwitz, see AuschwitzBergen-Belsen, 210, 212, 354 n.3Buchenwald, 309categories of, 344 n.11Jews working in, 111Marinberg, 5Neuengamme, 207, 208, 354 n.3Osnabruck, 5Rahlstadt, 237Theresienstadt, see Theresienstadt

(work camp)Westerbork, 310, 331

confiscation of property, 48, 85, 113,146, 174, 176, 207, 275, 285

Crystal Night, see Kristallnachtcultural identity, 4, 8, 16, 19, 69

Daddy (Plath), 105Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-

Staat, 346 n.24de Beauvoir, Simone, 1deportation, 47, 100, 141, 145, 146,

147, 148, 171, 184, 189, 207, 210,212, 274

Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt(Starke), 101

Der Stürmer (published by Streicher),344 n.3

Destruction of the European Jews, The(Hilberg), 345 n.15

Deutschkron, Inge, 351 n.6Deutschnational (political party), 98Diary of Anne Frank,The (Frank), 96Die Katrin wird Soldat: ein Roman aus

Elsass-Lothringen (Thomas), 181–182, 353 n.5

Die Rampe (radio play), 61Die Sondergesetze gegen die Juden

(Walk), 53Different Voices: Women and the Holo-

caust (Rittner and Roth), 356 n.16divorce, pressure to, 4, 27, 80, 81, 140,

141, 247, 266, 308

Index 367

Dohnke, K. (journalist), 170, 348n.15

Eakin, Paul John (theorist), 19Edelstein, Rabbi Dov, 298education in Germany, 348 n.11, 352

n.13, 352 n.14, 355 n.7emigration:

and return toGermany, 16, 84, 102Cohn family, 3, 4, 6, 18obstacles, 18, 49–50, 65, 84, 85,

131, 145, 150, 175, 220, 241,270, 279, 284, 311, 313

euthenasia, 68, 83, 325, 348 n.7, 348n.8

evacuation of children, 187, 353 n.11experiments on humans, 347 n.6

Fictions in Autobiography (Eakin), 344n.13

Firestorm over Hamburg (book), 98forced labor, 30, 149, 189, 215, 274FreieDeutsche Jugend (FDJ), 120, 350

n.10Fuhlsbüttel (prison), 215

genocide, 31, 115, 190, 218, 227, 265,285, 340, 348 n.7, 348 n.8

German language, 110perversion of, 23–24, 61–62

Gestapo (secret state police):actions of, 60, 81, 86, 87, 142, 145,

146, 212, 318, 319collaboration with, 68, 83correspondence with, 2, 10, 262lists, 3

Giordano, Ralph, 345 n.21, 352 n.18Die Bertinis, 53, 161Die Zweite Schuld der Deutschen,

166Wenn Hitler den Krieg gewonnen

hätte, 63Globke, Hans (advisor to Adenauer),

292, 355 n.8

Goebbels, Joseph, 23Goering, Hermann, 92, 138, 139, 351

n.3Goethe, JohannWolfgang von, 64, 69,

132, 155, 252, 328, 334, 349Goetz, Curt (playwright), 308Gösta Berling (Lagerlog), 315, 356 n.12Grosshamburger Gefängnis (prison), 3

Hamburg, bombing of, 98–99, 186,188, 192, 229, 253, 275, 300,322

Hamburg State Archives, 10–13Harlan, Veit (film director), 62Hecht, Ingeborg, 43–66, 162

agoraphobia of, 45, 51, 54, 57avoidance of emotional writing, 50baptism of, 47, 56brother of, 45, 47, 55, 61daughter of, 58, 59, 64divorce of parents, 66education of, 46, 58, 65father of, 46, 48, 49, 59, 61, 66grandparents of, 46InvisibleWalls (memoir), 45, 46, 52marriage of, 54, 58–59Mischling status of, 47mother of, 46, 48, 49, 66perversion of German language,

61–62public speeches of, 56religious identity of, 55, 56view of herself as historian, 46, 56–

57, 65Von der Heilsamkeit des Erinnerns,

53Herder (philosopher), 119History of the Jews, A (Johnson), 349 n.6Hitler, Adolph:

Mein Kampf, 58, 285, 311, 344 n.2policies against Jews, 4, 9, 124propaganda of, 4, 23, 198, 213resistance to, 338

368 DIVIDED LIVES

rise to power, 63, 78, 138, 142,217, 228, 284–285

Hitler songs, 301Höfer, Werner (television personality),

139–140, 351 n.5Holocaust (film), 57, 336, 346 n.29

identification cards, 29, 214identity:

cultural, 4, 8, 16, 19, 69religious, 3, 8, 9, 15, 55split, 4, 24–25, 32, 34

immigration, see emigrationimprisonment, 48–49, 66, 83, 139,

153, 213, 293Inability to Mourn, The (Mitscherlich),

299, 336

Jewish classification, 3, 23, 28Jewish star, see yellow starJewish Women in Nazi Germany

(Kaplan), 353 n.4

Kaplan, Louise (psychologist), 33, 45,69

Kapos, 349 n.4Kinderlandverschickung (KLV), 187,

353 n.11Klepper, Jochen (author), 318, 356

n.14Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb (poet),

349 n.9Kristallnacht, 3, 5, 29, 62, 84, 142, 143,

145, 168, 175, 278, 309, 343 n.4

Laub, Dori (psychoanalyst), 32, 36laws, anti-Jewish, 3, 12, 53, 139–142,

279, 302, 305, 307, 310, 311description of, 23–39list of, 69–73

Leipzig Gewandhaus Choir, 312Levi, Primo, 17, 49liberation:

by Americans, 192–194by British, 110, 234, 282by Russians, 106, 119, 126, 150,

212, 234, 276, 350 n.13, 352n.12

Lilli Braun: Erinnerungen einer Sozialis-tin, 181

Lorenzen, Gretel, 229–241baptism of, 236daughter (Sigrid), 231, 232, 235education of, 238, 267excerpts from memoirs, 262–267father of, 231, 233–238grandparents of, 233husband of, 231, 234–236Mischling status of, 231, 247mother of, 231, 234, 236–238religious beliefs of, 239–240, 244work in business, 239see also, Lorenzen, Sigrid

Lorenzen, Sigrid (daughter of Gretel),243–268description of father, 250description of mother’s memoirs,

249–250, 261, 266evacuation to Fehmarn, 253grandparents of, 249, 253, 265interest in Jews and survivors, 245,

248–249memories of father, 259–260Mischling status of, 231, 255political views of, 258religious beliefs of, 244, 251–252,

255–257, 261revisions of her mother’s story, 246support of Israel, 248–249, 252,

255–256views of German culture, 252,

261–262views of women’s roles, 258see also, Lorenzen, Gretel

Marcus, Mary (school director), 170Marinberg (work camp), 5

Index 369

Mengele, Josef, 292, 346 n.33mental hospitals, 81, 82, 87, 122mental illness, 33, 58, 66, 81, 82, 86,

87, 106, 122, 184, 190Menzel, Adolph (painter), 138, 351 n.4Mischling classification, 4, 28Mischlingsbaum (geneology tree), 136Mitscherlich, Margarete (psychothera-

pist):and Ursula Brosselman, 299, 336–

338children denouncing parents, 352

n.2Inability to Mourn, The, 299, 336

Mittagsrunde (television show), 139mixed marriage, 10, 25, 29, 47, 60, 71,

140, 147, 148, 175, 205Mothers in the Fatherland (Koonz), 14My German Lessons (Bahlsen-Cohn),

343 n.7

name, changing of, 8–9, 107Napola, 292, 355 n.7National Socialism:

growth of, 4, 124, 177, 287party members, 89, 142, 232, 301policies against Jews, 26, 78, 128symbols of, 23, 79

Neuengamme (concentration camp),207, 208, 354 n.3

Nieman, Susan (philosopher), 106Nietzsche, Friedrich (philosopher), 350

n.11Night of Broken Glass, seeKristallnachtNuremberg (Nürnberg) Laws, 25, 27,

28, 31, 53, 139, 302, 305, 307, 310

Osnabruck (work camp), 5outsider, feelings of being, 1, 22, 24, 32

Gretel Lorenzen, 240Ilse B., 204, 218, 225–226Ingeborg Hecht, 45, 51, 55Ingrid Wecker, 92Margot Wetzel, 269, 279, 290

Ruth Wilmschen, 139, 164, 167,168

Ruth Yost, 104, 127Sigrid Lorenzen, 252Ursula Bosselman, 335Ursula Randt, 170, 196–197

Paepcke, Lotte (author), 56Patterns of Childhood (Wolf), 190persecution in school, 55, 89–90, 92–

93, 139, 155Persilschein (ivory snow certificate),

350 n.12PersonalNarrativesGroup, Interpreting

Women’s Lives (Barbre et al.), viPflichtjahr (service year), 184, 187,

189, 353 n.7Playfulness, World-Traveling, and Lov-

ing Perception (Lugones), 344 n.10Posen (part of Poland), 356 n.10Presseclub (television show), 140privileged mixed marriage, 29, 47, 60,

277, 311, 318propaganda, 23, 128, 138, 175, 198,

213, 349 n.3pseudo-survivors, 245

Rahlstadt (concentration camp), 237Randt, Ursula, 169–199

baptism of, 174bombing experiences of, 186, 188,

190, 192Carolinestrasse 35, 184cultural identity of, 170–171education of, 176–180, 185, 187,

195escape from Giessen, 190–191father of, 172–176, 178, 179, 183–

185, 191, 192, 195, 196fear of speaking, 174“foster mother” of, 187, 188grandparents of, 176–177, 181,

190, 193illness of, 184

370 DIVIDED LIVES

liberation by Americans, 192–194Mischling status of, 185mother of, 172–190, 192, 194–

196religious identity of, 171, 173, 199separation from relatives, 187, 190sister of, 185–186, 197split identity of, 171–172, 199work as historian, 170–171work with Hamburg Senate, 172

ration cards, 117, 145, 148, 177, 213,274, 310, 349 n.7

Rechtspartei (right-wing party), 235Reichsbund (German federation), 284Reichskristallnacht, see Kristallnachtreligious identity, 3, 8, 9, 15, 55religious persecution in the U.S., 8reparations, 7, 48, 95, 97, 134, 147,

151, 162, 221, 234, 246, 288repression, 10, 34, 51, 105, 162, 171,

230, 260–261Resistance of the Heart (Stoltzfus), 344

n.6resistance movement, 226, 294, 338retirement, forced, 140, 142Richarz, Monika (academic director),

34Roth, Eugen (author), 349 n.2

Sansibar oder der letzte Grund (Ander-sch), 347 n.37

Saturnian Earth: Places, Man and Pow-ers of Italy (Studniczka), 345 n.19

Schauspielhaus (theater), 302Schindler’s List (film), 166Scream, The (painting by Munch ), 68Senatskanzlei program, 169Seventh Cross, The (Segher), 67Simmel, Johannes Mario, 161, 352

n.16Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin

(Neiman), 349 n.1Social Democratic Party (SDP), 79,

181split identity, 4, 24–25, 32, 34

SS (chief police agency), 87, 110, 124,153, 190, 193, 207, 214, 277, 292,323

Stahlhelm, 302, 356 n.9Star of David, see yellow starStreet, Dresden (painting by Kirchner),

68Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body

(Smith), visuicide, 49, 80, 103, 106, 144, 299swastika, 344 n.1Swing-Jugend, 354 n.10

Teilfach frau, 252Thalia Theater, 302, 308Theresienstadt (work camp),

conditions in, 30, 48, 101, 149,150, 217, 234, 235, 253, 265,325

deportations to, 46, 47, 61, 147,149, 249, 270, 299, 325

exhibiting to Red Cross, 276strategies for survival in, 277

Todt, Fritz (SS General), 344 n.7trauma survivors:

description of, 36symptoms of, 45

Versailles treaty, 284Völkischer Beobachter (people’s

observer), 128, 350 n.16

Wagner, Richard (composer), 245Walk, Joseph:

Die Sondergesetze gegen die Juden,53

wannabes (pseudo-survivors), 245War Against the Jews, The (Dawidow-

icz), 343 n.5Wecker, Ingrid, 67–102

artistic work of, 68, 69, 92, 100brother of, 74, 78, 97education of, 89–90, 92–93

Index 371

father of, 68, 74–83, 86–88grandparents of, 75, 77, 84marriages of, 74, 93Mischling status of, 74, 85mother of, 74, 75, 76, 80–83, 84,

86–88, 90, 94, 95, 97–100religious identity of, 90

Weimar Republic, 10, 284weiter leben. Eine Jugend (Klüger), 352

n.15Westerbork (concentration camp),

310, 331Wetzel, Margot, 269–295

death of relatives, 270, 275deportation of relatives, 274education of, 273, 274, 279, 282father of, 270, 272–277, 279–282,

291grandparents of, 271, 272, 274,

281, 287husband of, 288, 289, 290Mischling status of, 270mother of, 270–277, 279–281,

283, 291religious identity of, 271, 277, 278,

286, 291split identity of, 269–270views of education, 281–282views of Israel, 286views of Mischling experience, 294views of modern Germany, 287,

292, 293, 295views of women’s roles, 289, 290work in business, 270, 288

White Rose (anti-Nazi) movement, 62Wie Engelchen seine Mutter suchte. Ein

Märchen in Versen (Wanske), 356n.18

Wiedergutmachung, see reparationsWilliam Tell (Schiller), 301Wilmschen, Ruth, 133–168

baptism of, 137children of, 153, 155, 156, 158,

160

death of relatives, 135, 136, 153,156, 160, 168

education of, 139, 154, 155employment as teacher, 155, 156,

167father of, 135–148, 151–155, 159,

160grandparents of, 137, 138, 142,

146, 147husband of, 151–153Mischling status of, 139, 143mother of, 135–138, 140, 142,

145–151, 153, 154, 160pregnancy of, 152public speeches of, 164–165religious identity of, 137split identity of, 136, 168views of modern Germany, 167

Wolbrom (ghetto), 211women’s stories, 204work camps, see concentration camps.

yellow star, 29–30, 55, 86, 96, 146,147, 148, 171, 184, 206, 248, 265,281, 313

Yost, Ruth, 103–132, 136, 161, 162abandonment by her father, 105,

109adopted sons of, 106, 122–123,

125confinement in mental hospital,

122confirmation of, 116distrust of organizations, 120–121education of, 113–114, 119escape to Austria, 117father of, 105–112, 115, 116, 122grandparents of, 107, 114Mischling status of, 119mother of, 105–109, 113, 115–

118, 125murder of relatives, 114–115partner of, 121rape of, 106, 110, 126

372 DIVIDED LIVES

religious identity of, 116, 123, 125,129

split identity of, 116, 125suicide of, 103, 106

views of modern Germany, 124,127, 130

views of the United States, 130–132